Once More
by Mirrordance
Summary: Life's almost good now that Sam's back on the road with him, but then the tumors are back too, and Dean thinks he might be dying again. Sequel to “One Night,” and set during the episodes “Scarecrow” and “Faith.”
1. Fear

Author:Mirrordance

Title:Once More

Summary:Life's almost good now that Sam's back on the road with him, but then the tumors are back too, and Dean thinks he might be dying again. Sequel to "One Night," and set during the episodes "Scarecrow" and "Faith."

**Notes:**

**1. **It is recommended that you read _One Night_ first, but not necessary. If you haven't read it or need a **bullet-point refresher, _One Night_** is about Dean visiting Sam in Stanford the night before he was scheduled for surgery on his lungs to remove a tumor, to say his goodbyes just in case he doesn't wake up. He doesn't mention that he's sick at all, but they talk, he leaves, and a week later, Sam finds out. Sam wants to quit school to look after him so Dean ducks out, and pushes him away so that he stays in college. It's the last time they see each other before Dean visits him again in the series pilot.

**2. **Shout out to all who reviewed _Every Now and Then_! To: apieceofcake, mandy, kaitokitty, zuimar, Phoebe, Mockingbird84, tvbatina, anon, deangirl1, Babyhilts, ImcaledZorro, and heather03nmg. You guys are the best... I'm a few fics into this fandom but I still feel new all the time so thank you for the support. Your c&cs are as wlecome as always!

" " "

Once More

" " "

1: Fear

_Set During the Events of "_Scarecrow"

" " "

_It's not gonna kill me._

_No, but it'll hurt like hell_.

_Flash of light, moment of mind-numbing brilliance, just before it was eaten by consuming black, and suddenly he was on the ground, and nothing of his body could move, nothing of his mind could make him want to--_

_Involuntary breath._

_And damn but Sam was right, it hurt, it hurt like a sonofabitch--_

Dean Winchester shot awake coughing, choking on the coughs, clutching his bruised chest, shaking with exertion. You know you've reached a new low when your nightmares equaled your memories, and he was just reflecting on that heretofore undiscovered, depressing fact, when he felt Sam's Sasquatch paws on his back, slapping, rubbing, telling him to breathe through it, asking him if he was okay.

"G' back t' sleep," he growl-gasped at his younger brother, pushing himself to his feet, and lumbering toward the bathroom. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would not be followed; their time apart and how it came to be had conditioned the both of them toward giving each other wary spaces. But he knew Sam wouldn't be following his request to be left alone completely either, because their time together _before_ Stanford had been deep and ingrained, like blood in their veins. That blood was running on thinners right now, sure, but it was still there and all damn over.

Dean snapped on the bathroom lights, kept his head lowered as he grabbed water from the tap, drank some of it. His mouth tasted funny. Very, very lightly coppery, like his teeth were bleeding. He rinsed off his mouth, fairly confident that if he was bleeding inside from that damned shot, he'd be having it much worse than this, wouldn't he?

Still, if there was something inside him that prayed, well... it _prayed_. He hoped it was nothing. He hoped he could just put this damned nightmare-memory behind him, put Sam's trigger-finger completely and absolutely in the past. Getting hurt worse would just fuck everything up all the more, and the both of them were just badly dented right now.

He leaned toward the cracked, smoky old mirror. He opted out of a shirt sometime after Sam had fallen sleep, in deference to the tender skin on his chest and to make sure that Sam would not see how gloriously the late Dr. Ellicott's handiwork blazed across Dean's skin. He spared the injury a thoughtful glance, before he grit his teeth and stared at the neat white rows, turned his head from side to side, then opened his mouth wide, searching for the source of the bleed from his teeth.

The coppery taste was gone, the search too much of a bother, so he rinsed off his face, shut the light, and went back out to the dingy motel room.

He realized with a grimace that this room, now soaked by the dim light of a dull morning, was one of their worst ones _ever_. Hard to notice these things after a sleepless night running around in a haunted asylum with your chest shot to hell, and you stop at the first place you find. But in situations like this, things always looked worse in the morning, and some motel rooms were just _damned_ ugly, like waking up with a woman you'd never have taken to bed if you were a measure of sober the night before.

"You okay?" Sam asked, voice still deep from sleep, brown eyes discreetly drifting to the bruises he, under the influence of the dead, mad doctor of said asylum, had inflicted on his brother just hours before. He was seated on the corner of Dean's bed, anxious and uncertain.

"Just choked on my spit or something," Dean lied, absurdly vaguely, thinking it was ridiculous enough to be possibly true. Or maybe not thinking at all. _Whatever_.

"That's really gross, Dean," Sam said, looking mildly skeptical and heavily disgusted. Again, their time apart had taught them doubt, in this wacky dance. But, _again_, their time together before that had also taught them to _tango _too.

So Sam shifts tactics. He had, after all, always preferred actionable routes. "What can I do?"

Referring to the injury and not the spit, unfortunately, Dean realized. So much for the half-hearted lie.

"It's just a fugly bruise, Florence," Dean told him, slinking back beneath the covers of his bed. He tried not to think about where the hell these damn sheets have been and who may have laid there doing what before him, as he settled in for sleep.

"I've had plenty worse, you know that," he assured Sam, before realizing that was never really an assurance, and--

"That's not reassuring," Sam pointed out, making Dean think, _Typical_.

"Live with it," he growled, shifting and wincing, closing his eyes. He nudged Sam's hip with his foot, lightly kicking him off his bed, "Go to sleep, Sam."

"You mad at me?" Sam asked, after a long moment.

_Am I_? Dean wondered.

"Do we have to talk about this?" Sam pressed.

_Do we_? Dean asked himself, vaguely remembering he must have been asked this same question before.

"He latched onto you and amplified feelings of anger," Dean droned, like it was a mantra he'd been telling himself also, "It's not your fault."

"But _are_ you mad at me?" Sam asked, because it didn't take a genius to know that these were two different things. It might not be Sam's fault factually, but what did Dean _feel_ about all this?

"Are you mad at _me_?" Dean retorted, biting back the rest of it which was, _'Cos you're the one who shot_-- he kept his face turned away and his eyes closed, thinking, _I would really wanna fall asleep, like, right now_.

"I told you, Ellicott--"

"Nevermind," Dean cut him off, irritably, because Sam was being an evasive, coy bitch and because it didn't take a genius to know that these were two different things too. Ellicott made Sam shoot his brother, fine, but that didn't mean he planted the resentful thoughts in Sam's mind. He had fed off of that, but they were already inarguably _there_.

"Nevermind," Dean said again, "I told you I'm not in the mood and I just wanna sleep."

In afterthought, he added, because he imagined Sam's lonely face in the dull light as if he could actually, _actually_ see it, "It's not your fault, Sam."

Dean heard his brother take a calming breath, before the side of the bed where he was sitting rose with the loss of his warming weight, and the rustling of the sheets on the other bed indicated Sam was making an effort to head back to sleep too.

"I wonder," Sam murmured, "What he would have picked up from you if it was the other way around."

Dean's eyes opened at that.

He stared at the window in the room and the streaks of depressing, dull light going through the cheap, ages-old-and-thinned curtains, and wondered the same thing.

" " "

It was the first time he woke up crying Jessica's name with no Dean there to lend grudging comfort. There was no firm hand on his chest, bracing him as he arched and vainly reached for the sight of her, long-gone. There were no big-brother hazel eyes darkened by the night and by worry. No tight mouth, jerking with quiet words that at first Sam doesn't hear above the echoes of his cries and the beating of his heart, until the smell of the smoke clears and his mind returns home, and he knows his brother is saying _Sammy_, or _I gotcha_, or _It's just a dream, bro_, or _Come on back now._

He caught his breath and let the devastation devour him, wondered how deep and how long it would last, how much it would take from him, if he suffered through it alone.

_Hurts like hell_, he decided, imagining curly blond tendrils almost poetically catching fire at one end, then the flame winds and dances up, until the entire hair burns out. Every single strand of her hair burning out. Her eyes imploring him to save her, not understanding what was happening, expecting him to make things right. And her small mouth, moving, appropriately soundless, but he already knew that she too was crying for him.

He brushed angrily at tears that had welled over his eyes, and streaked down to his pillows. _God_, this room was ugly. The dull fucking light was depressing the hell out of him.

He rode the hurt, glancing his brother's deeply sleeping way.

_Mad at me_, he decided, miserably, just because the room was ugly, his dream was bad, and it was probably true. That was why Dean was ignoring him.

_But he wouldn't_, he thought, a breath before he accepted the idea with a deep knowledge. Dean was, for one reason or other, profoundly... forgiving. He was an open, unconventionally but remarkably naive, irrepressible soul. _Simple_, Sam allowed himself to think in weaker moments, because it felt condescending, except sometimes, there was just no two ways of looking at it. Simple did not equate to stupid, far from. It was just a question of, well, _simple_ preference. Dean was theoretically easy to please: nice car, good food, good music, good company (which included family, women and kids, and occasionally dogs). He bore scars - who didn't?- but no grudges. Just... wishes. No grudges, just... wishes. For instance, it was never quite _You-left-me-Sam_ much more than it was _I-wish-you-were-here_.

Which brought him back to the bare fact that his brother might be mad at him over that nasty asylum business, but ignoring him, especially in dreaming about Jessica, was downright impossible. The only other alternative was that he really was as busted-up tired as he had claimed.

Sam sighed, sat up, and still there was no movement from Dean. He leaned over and reached out, but his hand wavered, not quite knowing where to go. He settled for the turned shoulder.

"Dude."

Uncharacteristically light stirring.

"Dean--"

"Sleep," Dean groan-growled, irritably turning Sam's way, hazel eyes clouded and weary, half-open orbs settling on his younger brother's face and leveling out in realization and worry, "Sam...? You okay?" he asked a bit more lucidly, scrambling up to his elbows.

"No, no--" Sam's hands were waving around aimlessly again, and he felt embarrassed, "No, sleep. Sleep, please. I'm fine. I was just wondering if you were."

Dean rolled back his eyes and settled back down. He muttered something resignedly, something that sounded like 'Little brothers' in the same tone one would say 'Shit,' making Sam's mouth quirk.

"Good night, Dean."

" " "

Dean woke up once more during that timeless, eternal morning/night.

Instinctively light feet must have taken him to the bathroom without further incident, or disrupting his finally-asleep, exhausted, nightmare-plagued kid-brother. That was the extent of what he knew about getting there, because he thought he was in bed until his eyes focused on a blood-spattered sink, his head lowered down to the spoiled, aged white of it, as he caught his breath.

_This is a nightmare_, he thought.

_Or a memory_, he corrected himself, because these two things have been shuffling back and forth tonight. Inanely, he thought he could be more diplomatic and just say it's _a nightmare of a memory_ or _a memory of a nightmare_. Whatever. Point being, he'd been down this road once before, and that story ended years ago, when _f__ear was coughing up blood in a dim bathroom in the middle of nowhere, thinking _This is it, this is how I'm kicking it, and No one's ever gonna know_. I'm just gonna be some dead guy with eight fake credit cards in a ratty motel._

Ended, because he was fine now. Fine. And he was no longer alone, and someone's gonna know if he wasn't, and someone's gonna care, and he found that was actually far more _frightening _than being all alone.

_Is this real_? he wondered, lifting up his head and looking at his face on the mirror. Years ago, he had looked up like this too, finding a face pale and hallowed on a scarred mirror, lightly blood-spattered, just like the corners of his mouth.

_Is this now_? he wondered, and let his eyes rake through his face, searching desperately for a difference between today and yesterday, because he wasn't feeling well and he was desperately confused.

His eyes settled on the bruise on his chest.

The bruise that hadn't been there until Sam shot him with a salt round, a few hours ago. This was now. This was fucking _now_.

The realization burned him, made him cough again. He slapped a hand over his mouth, smothering the cough, making it worse, smothering it more. Fucking cycle that apparently was going to end only after he dies...

_You know you've reached a new low when your nightmares equaled your memories_, he had thought earlier that night. Except now was an even lower low, what with both these things becoming the present all over again.

_I'm dying again_, he thought, experimentally, because there was a chance that the bloody coughing was just a result of his chest injury after all. But there was something gut-hitting to the idea, something that made him know beyond a shadow of a doubt that his body remembered exactly how that first time felt, and this was what was happening again. And worse, the fact that it was happening again indicated a tendency, possibly even a _malignancy_ to the condition. The recent chest injury was likely just the aggravating factor that made the symptoms known, like before. But the disease must have been just inside him, waiting to take him.

_I'm dying again_, he thought _again_, opening the tap and letting the water wash the blood from his hands. He caught his breath as he worked, ridiculously thinking _Out damned spot_ as he wiped at the mirror and the sink obsessively, once, then once more over, before scanning the sink hungrily, searching for any bloodstain he might have missed.

_Clean_, he decided with a measure of uncertainty and resignation.

He glanced at the bathroom door, suddenly dreading going out.

He sighed, coughed lightly and was relieved to find no more blood this time, before hesitantly stepping out.

He was relieved to find that Sam was still asleep. He picked up his cellphone from where it lay on the night table between him and Sam's bed. He glanced at his brother; Sam was really out like a light. He dialed his father's number, and stepped inside the bathroom just as the call kicked into voice mail.

"Dad," he said, voice low and hushed and just a bit huskier from his ravaged throat, "You have to let us find you."

_I'm sick and Sam will need you_.

"You have to let us find you," Dean said again, wished he could say more. He hung up, placed the phone back on the night table, and crawled back to bed.

" " "

The rule was, no matter the time of day, if it's your fucking phone, you answer it. The rule was, if it's your fucking phone, it wasn't supposed to wake up anyone but you.

Dean's phone was ringing.

Sam was sleepy and sleepy-pissed. It just kept on ringing.

"Dean."

_Damn phone_, he thought, reaching over, too weary to be pissed for too long, deciding the best course would just be to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Sam, is that you?"

He once fantasized about getting this call. His father, unmistakably. Undeniably. Irrepressibly. _Finally_. Sometimes, he imagined being angry, and screaming his head off, asking _Where the hell have you been?_ Sometimes, he imagined crying, about Jess, thinking, thinking their father can make things right or stab through whatever made it wrong. Sometimes, he imagined glancing at the ID and just ending the call and blocking the number for ever.

He never thought he would just sit up, slowly, as if afraid that any sudden movement would make his father scamper off.

"Dad," he said, voice low but sure, "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," as vague as always. Bristled him a little, also as always.

"We've been looking for you everywhere," He caught his tone, which was mildly accusatory, and he curbed it as he glanced at his still-sleeping brother, "We didn't know where you were, if you were okay."

"Sammy, I'm all right," John assured him, "What about you and Dean?"

Dean was stirring. Sam wanted to throw a pillow at his face to get him more aware, but he couldn't for the life of him think of anything else but his father on the phone.

"We're fine," Sam said, urgently, "Dad, where are you?"

He could see from the corner of his eye that Dean straightened up and turned to him with increasing focus and awareness.

"Sorry kiddo, I can't tell you that."

"What?!" Sam exclaimed, "Why not?"

"Is that dad?" Dean asked, disbelieving. But he knew better than anybody that only one person in the world could inspire that brand of rebelliousness in Sam; _Why? Why not? What?!_

"Look, I know this is hard for you to understand," John said, sounding like he wished painfully that Dean had answered the call instead, "You just... you're gonna have to trust me on this."

"You're after it, aren't you?" Sam asked, reverently, because it was that one thing that ruled their lives and also the one thing that was never really spoken of, "The Thing that killed mom."

"Yeah," John answered, adding, "It's a demon, Sam."

"A demon?" Sam breathed, knowing that demons were the worst of the worst. They were like humans, unpredictable, crafty, bound by very few rules, and they were thankfully fairly rare. "You know for sure?"

"A demon, what's he saying?" Dean asked, pushing off his blankets and blindly reaching for a shirt, eyes boring into his brother.

"I do," John said, "Listen, Sammy, I ah... I also know what happened to your girlfriend. I'm so sorry. I would've done anything to protect you from that."

_He knows, he knows_, Sam thought, _But he didn't come pick up the goddamn pieces, did he?_

He didn't know if this was worse, his father knowing what had happened to him and still keeping away. And yet the brutal honesty was giving him some inexplicable comfort. If there was someone in the world, anyone at all, who could honestly say that he knew what Sam was feeling, that was John.

_I would have done anything to protect you from that_...

He didn't know what to say. Thinking about Jess was like a stab in the gut. Speaking of her was unimaginable. No wonder their father never spoke about mom.

"You know where it is?" was all he could think to say. Actionable things, yes, let's focus on those, instead of the things that crippled and maimed a man, like memories of burning blond hair.

"Yeah," John answered, undoubtedly understanding and appreciating the shift of orientation, "I think I'm finally closing in on it."

"Let us help," Sam said at once, with blinding certainty. _Let me help. Let me get it. Let me smoke it. Let me. Let me. Let me--_

"You can't," John replied, also with a blinding certainty that Sam couldn't understand, "You can't be any part of it."

"Why not?" Sam snapped, biting back his tongue at _I thought you understood me_. _I thought you knew what it was like. I have a right. I have a right--_

Dean motions for the phone again, recognizing that the rebellion would soon turn unproductive. "Gimme the phone."

"Listen Sammy," said John, "That's why I'm calling. You and your brother...you gotta stop looking for me. Now I need you to write down these names."

"Names?" Sam asked in disbelief, "What names?" It sounded ridiculous, after everything his father had just revealed, "Dad, talk to me. Tell me what's going on."

"Look, we don't have time for this," John's impatience was as inevitable as Sam's rebellion, "This is bigger than you think, they're everywhere. Even us talking right now, it's not safe."

"No," Sam insisted, falling back on instinct, "All right? No way."

No reason, now. It was only fair, John was being just as vague and stubborn. He had to get his hands on the Thing that killed his mother and Jessica. He just _had _to.

"I've given you an order," John snapped, also falling on instinct though Sam was pretty sure they both knew those were the words that ultimately would make Sam do the opposite of whatever John was _order_ing, "Now you stop following me and you do your job, you understand me? Now take down these names."

He was so astounded by the ridiculousness of this conversation that he ran out of words. His mouth jerked, and he imagined sputtering a few other worthless things, except Dean snatched the phone from his anger-numbed fingers.

"Dad, it's me, where are you?" Dean asked, urgently. Sam suspected their father didn't even address that and snapped straight to the task at hand.

"Yes sir," Dean said, and Sam knew he was right.

"Uh, yeah I got a pen," Dean said, and Sam thought he was going to have a heart attack.

_I got a pen? _His mind screamed, is that it? After everything? After months of searching? _I got a pen_?!

_And you were asking if I was mad at you_, Sam thought, anger helplessly turning toward his brother, like a shadow of his rage at his father, or its nimbus. He pushed himself to his feet, tossed his tangled sheets on the bed. He felt Dean glance up at him with a measure of surprise but he ignored it, and just walked to the bathroom and turned on the shower.

" " "

Sam took his time in the shower, something Dean was relieved about. Let him work off that steaming, simmering rage. He wasn't an idiot, nor was he blind. Sam's eyes were just aflame, and his body tight, as if ready to spring with one wrong move from Dean.

Dean occupied himself on Sam's laptop, with their father's journal also in front of him. He was looking up the names his father had given them, when Sam stepped back into the room.

He predictably looked calmer when he stepped out of the bathroom. He glanced at the clock on the night stand, and his brows rose in surprise. "Six pm, huh?"

"Yeah," Dean winced, "Well we did sleep in the morning, right?"

Sam shrugged as he gathered his clothes. "So what? We gotta be off soon?"

"Yeah," Dean replied, "But you gotta let me shower first, dude. And I looked up the people dad told us about. Check it out while you can, I'll be out in a bit, then we can go."

Sam just shrugged, noncommittally. Dean stopped in front of him.

"Hey," he called to his younger brother, whose eyes drifted his way.

"What?"

Dean stared at him for a long, quiet, moment. The anger was still there, oh yes, but was just _slightly_ less pronounced. "You good?"

"'Course I'm good," Sam said under his breath, just a bit sarcastic.

"We need to talk about this?" Dean asked, wincing upon the realization that it's been Sam asking him that same thing these last few hours and he was the one shrugging it off. Sam just looked at him pointedly.

_Yeah_, Dean thought as he warily stepped back, _I guess I wouldn't be in the sharing and caring kind of mood either_.

" " "

Dean let him have the wheel.

It didn't surprise him anymore, really. Dean let him drive whenever Dean felt he needed some appeasing. That's probably because, in Dean-world, the car and an open road can make everything better. It worked on Sam, but only for a little while. Kept him from thinking about Jess, and getting to know the quirks of the car was like knowing his brother a little bit more. There had even been that odd reward of the first time Dean fell asleep with him on the wheel. Dean had been injured, sure, but Sam had no doubt he could have stayed awake if he had to. It was trust, and the rare relinquishing of control. Sam had never felt so empowered and so scared in his life. He wondered if that was how Dean always felt, having Sam on the passenger seat. It was his slowest, most careful drive _ever_.

But there was no appeasing Sam tonight.

"All right," he said as he drove, "The names dad gave us, they're all couples?"

"Three different couples," Dean confirmed, "All went missing."

"And they're all from different towns?" Sam asked, "Different states?"

He wished he could even pretend to have read the things Dean had called up from the Internet but he was busy looking something else up while Dean was in the shower. His brother was wisely not calling him out on it, though Sam suspected he knew.

"That's right," Dean replied, encouraging, and it sounded vaguely like _Welcome to the class_, "You got Washington, New York, Colorado. Each couple took a road trip cross-country. None of them arrived at their destination, and none of them were ever heard from again."

"Well it's a big country, Dean," Sam pointed out, "They could've disappeared anywhere."

"Yeah, could've," Dean conceded, "But each one's route took 'em to the same part of Indiana. Always on the second week of April, one year after another, after another."

Sam's brows rose. This _was_ the second week of April.

"So dad's sending us to Indiana to go hunting for something before another couple vanishes," Sam concludes.

"Yahtzee," Dean said, "Can you imagine putting together a pattern like this? All the different obits dad had to go through? The man's a master."

_Now_ Sam is royally pissed. Pissed at his father for ducking out on them, pissed for the misleading instructions and always hoping and failing to find him, pissed at his brother for making excuses for their dad, pissed at Dean for over-selling their father's attributes like this, as if it was supposed to make up for everything.

Sam pulls over on the side of the road.

"What are you doing?" Dean asked.

"We're not going to Indiana."

" " "

"We're not going to Indiana."

Sam's dead serious, and even though Dean knew that any argument or reasoning would be futile the very breath Sam even begins to look and sound like this, he had no choice but to keep going.

"We're not?" he asked, lamely, trying to buy time to think.

_Don't do this now_, his mind begged, _We gotta find dad, I know that. More than ever. But I don't know what to do..._

... And having orders to follow were _damned _comforting.

Besides, he thought about it, in the shower. If this battle was gonna be big, he wasn't going to be any good to anybody, being so badly sick. He was just going to be a liability. The best thing to do was to hang back, take care of the small details, like vanishing couples in a small town, let his father have one less thing to worry about as he fought the war.

And whatever great danger Dean couldn't get into, he was not going to allow Sam to be involved in, oh no...

"No," Sam replied, simply, "We're going to California. Dad called from a pay phone. Sacramento area code."

"Sam," Dean said, a warning tone, hardly grounding. He couldn't think of any other word to attach to that.

"Dean," Sam implored, because he'd always been better at scrambling for words than his brother, "If this demon killed mom and Jess, and dad's closing in, we gotta be there. We gotta help."

"Dad doesn't want our help," Dean pointed out, lamely, even to his own ears.

"I don't care," Sam snapped.

Futile, but necessary: "He's given us an order."

"I don't care," Sam said, even more firmly now, because as older brother, Dean knew about all of Sam's allergies and their father's orders was the worst of them. "We don't always have to do what he says."

Dean shifts tactics. Sam always had the bleeding heart. He did the _it's-not-about-dad's-orders_ bit since it's worked before and said, "Sam, dad is asking us to work jobs, to save lives. It's important."

"All right, I understand," Sam said quickly, "Believe me, I understand. But I'm talking one week here, man. To get answers. To get revenge."

"All right," Dean said, "Look, I know how you feel--"

"Do you?" Sam snapped.

Dean is taken aback, blinks at his younger brother's tone.

"How old were you when mom died?" Sam asked, eyes wounded and pretty damn close to bleeding by now. "Four? Jess died six months ago. How the hell would you know how I feel?"

Dean is stung. Heavily insulted, yeah, sure, but more hurt than anything. He wanted to scream. _Don't you fucking know me, bro_? Because to Dean, he didn't need to know Jessica to understand his brother's pain. All he needed to know was Sam, and with Sam hurting, he perforce hurt too. It was that simple. He never doubted his understanding, or his position to lend comfort or help.

_I'm your brother. I didn't know her. But I know you, and I know you broken._

He had thought that knowledge gave him the best rights in the world to say _I know how you feel_. He didn't mean to say he knew what the loss meant. He just meant to say _I know how _you_ feel._

But there were no words for that, not now. He was hurting himself, couldn't see straight, and his chest was beginning to tighten. "Dad said it wasn't safe," he said, feeling like an idiot robot, because when did such a thing ever stop them before?

"For any of us," he emphasized, _for you_, "I mean, he obviously knows something that we don't so if he says to stay away, we stay away."

"I don't understand the blind faith you have in the man," Sam groaned, "I mean, it's like you don't even question him."

Sometimes, there wasn't anything wrong about blind faith. If Sam had asked Dean to duck, he wouldn't think about it, he just _would_. It was frustrating, this crazy rebellion, couldn't Sam see that? It was toxic and unproductive. And more than mildly insulting to Dean, compounded by all the things thrown his way over at the asylum.

_Pathetic._

_Take responsibility for a change._

"It's called being a good son," Dean retorted, as if he was arguing with the manic version of his brother instead, the one that had said all those things.

Sam's eyes narrowed in barely-restrained rage. Maybe they really should have talked about this after all. Sam gets out of the car.

Dean sets his jaws, wishing he had bit his tongue except he was hip-deep in it now and he was frustrated also. He felt his chest twinging. He had a feeling where this was gonna go. But it was like watching a plane crash. Nothing you can do but strap in. He coughed once, bit it back and stepped out of the car, walking to the trunk where his brother was busy gathering his meager belongings.

"You're a selfish bastard, you know that?" Dean asked, letting the words flood out of him. Sam wanted to know, didn't he? Wanted to know what Ellicott would have dug up? This was it, this was the truth, and this was his last chance to keep Sam around, short of saying _I'm sick, I'll be useless to dad in a fight like that. I'll be useless to _you_. Stay with me. Don't go anywhere I can't follow. Don't go anywhere I can't protect you. _But he wasn't made like that, was he?

"You just do whatever you want," Dean went on, "Don't care what anybody thinks."

_Don't care what _I_ think_, Dean thought, _Don't care what _I_ need, don't care, don't care, don't care--_

"That's what you really think?" Sam asked.

Dean looked him dead in the eye and meant it from the very_ very_ pits of his souland said, "Yes, it is."

"Well then," Sam declared, "This selfish bastard is going to California."

Sam pulled his bags on more securely, and turned to walk away. He couldn't have known, how familiar this goddamn scene was, or how much more hurtful the second time around. Sam and his bags and determined stalking toward California. Leaving Dean. Always, _always_ leaving.

_Selfish bastard_.

"Come on," Dean called to him, "You're not serious."

It wasn't a dare. He knew better than calling out a bluff with Sam. Dean was mouthier, but Sam was all commitment, and by god, he never lost. _Ever._

"I am serious."

_I know_, Dean bit back, _Goddamnitt._

"It's the middle of the night," Dean reasoned, but Sam just kept going.

"Hey, I'm taking off--" Maybe not so smart, but he was his father's son that way too. Last resort: "I will leave your ass, you hear me?"

"That's what I want you to do," Sam said, almost mocking, sing-song, as if he knew his brother wouldn't leave him. Dean never has. Because Dean never did the leaving. Dean was always the one left behind. It was always Dean getting left behind. Always, always getting left behind, and it was making his eyes water and his chest tighten and hurt and he was being turned away again, turned away, left behind--

_Leave me once, shame on you. Leave me twice, shame on me_.

"Goodbye Sam," he said, jaws set, his look holding more conviction than his heart.

" " "

_I've never been left behind by Dean before_.

Dean could have hit him in the face and he'd have been less surprised by that. Been less hurt by that.

His brother closed the trunk, tossed him a look of regretful anger and disappointment before closing the door. He started the car. The lights came on. The car pulled away and macabrely, he watched. Because even as it rolled away he still couldn't believe that Dean was leaving him. Dean. Leaving. Him. It made absolutely no sense.

It made far less sense than him on an empty road in the middle of the night. Sometimes, _sometimes_ this temper of his really got the better of him. But whatever the temper brought on, the pride always helped him weather.

Sam trudged forward.

There was no other way but.

" " "

_What if he gets picked up by some psycho_?

_Or gets run over or clipped? That damn road was dark_.

_What if he catches hypothermia_?

_What if he gets held up_?

_What if there's a monster or a ghost or--_

Dean's chest hurt. He coughed, once, but that wasn't going to be enough. The road blurred before him. He pulled over before he could run over anyone, like other people's stupid, stubborn kid brothers who'd have gone out on their own on dark, dangerous roads.

He hacked and wheezed. The coughs were loaded by more than just air. Wet and thick, stifling. He pressed palms over his mouth. His eyes watered as he breathed in and out, fighting for some sort of control, because he was being overcome by a pervading sense of drowning. His hand shook, as he struggled with unlocking his door. He scrambled to his knees on the dewy-wet ground, coughed to his aching heart's content. He spat out blood – _bleeding teeth, my ass_ – and fell on his rump in weariness.

He wiped at his sweaty brow, and yet he felt chilled to the bone, and he trembled with the exertion and the feeling of shock.

If Sam was here, he'd be hovering and panicky, all uncoordinated limbs scrambling. It would be marginally funny, making the situation slightly bearable. But god, he knew better than anybody that Sam had greater problems than a dying brother, didn't he? He had a shitload more crap to deal with already, without Dean in the mix.

_Maybe this is better_, he realized, _Dad can take care of him better. Dad can help him get what he wants. What he needs. I don't think I can, anymore._

_Maybe this is better_.

He gathered his feet, caught his breath.

And then headed off to work, alone.

" " "

It was a given.

_Of course_ he'd call first.

Dean had gone and found the perfect excuse, sure, but Sam wasn't complaining. Dean calling him, that was enough. His older brother had sounded excited over the phone, telling him about some _Jeepers Creepers_ action like the two of them weren't fighting just hours before. Like they hadn't just written each other off. Maybe he just needed to talk to someone about it and literally had no one else to call. Or maybe he did find just something exciting to talk about that would allow a temporary truce. Maybe a lot of things.

"The scarecrow climbed off its cross?" Sam breathed, amazed himself.

"Yeah," Dean confirmed, "I'm tellin' ya. Burkitsville, Indiana. Fun town."

"It didn't kill the couple, did it?" Sam asked, though of course he should have known.

"No," Dean said simply, adding, with the usual humor, "I can't cope without you, you know."

"So something must be animating it," Sam said, "A spirit."

"No, it's more than a spirit," Dean said with certainty, "It's a god. A pagan god, anyway."

Sam was surprised, but again, he shouldn't have been either. He'd always fancied himself the researcher between the two of them, and Dean had always made him know it (or was too lazy to bother, deciding to butter up his brother into compliance instead). But this was his older brother's job too, and had been doing it long before he got into it and long after he got out. Proved it time and again, always knowing more than he usually let on, like explaining how he had come to that conclusion this time, looking at annual cycles and victim demographics.

As they talked, they fell back into that old, comforting pattern. Brainstorming, cascading ideas. Falling into each other, because sometimes it was easy.

"Do you know which god you're dealing with?" Sam asked.

"No, not yet," Dean answered.

"Well you figure out what it is," said Sam, "You can figure out a way to kill it."

"I know," said Dean, "I'm actually on my way to a local community college. I got an appointment with a professor." He paused, "You know, since I don't have my trusty sidekick geek boy to do all the research."

"You know," Sam laughed, "If you're hinting you need my help, just ask."

"I'm not hinting anything," Dean said, quickly. He didn't need to, they both knew that. Dean didn't always say everything, but he almost always said everything that needed to be said. That was why he was quick to call, quick to forgive.

"Actually," he cleared his throat, "I want you to know... I mean... don't think..." the words trailed off. He wasn't good with words, but he was good with results. Sam got it, always, he got it somehow.

_Don't think I don't want you around_.

_Don't think I'm angry enough not to care what happens to you_.

_Don't think you don't deserve the things you want. Some bastards got every right, _every right_ to go after what they want._

_Don't think I'm not sorry you're gone--_

"Yeah," Sam said, as if he heard, _and maybe he did_, "I'm sorry too."

"Sam," Dean said, "You were right. You gotta do your own thing. You gotta live your own life."

_He can't be serious_, Sam thought, maybe he even said it aloud, because Dean expounded, "You've always known what you want, and you go after it. You stand up to dad, you always have. Hell I wish I--"

He paused, and Sam wondered if he would ever know the thought, the regret, attached to that.

"Anyway," Dean caught himself, "I admire that about you. I'm proud of you, Sammy."

"I don't even know what to say," Sam admitted.

"Say you'll take care of yourself," Dean filled in.

"I will," Sam found himself promising.

"Call me when you find dad," Dean added.

"Okay," Sam said, feeling quite awed, "Bye, Dean."

He hung up, still reeling. He barely noticed his new friend, a lean blond who was literally and figuratively on the same road as he was, rise from her spot on the floor and walk over to him.

"Who was that?" Meg asked.

"My brother," Sam replied.

"What did he say?" she asked, curiously. And a little warily.

"Goodbye," Sam said, because that had been exactly what it was.

" " "

As goodbye's went, this one didn't last too long. Maybe they were improving their relationship, or deteriorating their capacity to leave, it depended on one's perspective.

Their very first goodbye had them not-seeing each other for a year or so after Dean encouraged Sam to head on off to college. They only saw each other again when Dean popped up on his door looking mildly inebriated and lonely-cheery, offering him a beer. They said goodbye then too, and a few moments later Dean changed his mind and turned back, and they spent the evening together, just yakking. Arguing a little, but that was who they were. Dean had dropped him a note and vanished the next day and then a week later, Dean was in the hospital, since the visit hadn't been as light as he pretended after all.

After that incident they said goodbye too, albeit more harshly now, and years later Dean popped by his door again, asking him for help looking for their father. Sam joined him for a day, and then, _again_ they said goodbye, and Dean ended up saving his life minutes later. Saved him from the fire, saved him from himself when the despair of his loss just gnawed at his soul. They haven't been apart since. They've been keeping each other alive since.

So saying goodbye in Burkitsville, Indiana... theoretically nothing new but, apparently, not a very good idea either. And this time around, it's Sam who runs to Dean's rescue, out in an orchard with a vindictive god on their heels.

They got the job done, there was no surprise about that. Handled the civies and then they were alone again, just the two of them, for the first time in days.

"So can I drop you off somewhere?" Dean asked him, even as Sam knew he already knew the answer.

"No, I think you're stuck with me," Sam said, as the two of them stopped by the Impala.

"What made you change your mind?" Dean asked.

"I didn't," Sam admitted, "I still wanna find dad. And you're still a pain in the ass."

Dean kind-of just shrug-nods at this. The first step to improvement, they say, is to be aware of one's weakness. The thing with Dean though, was that he'd been stuck at step one for awhile.

"But Jess and mom," Sam went on, earnestly, "They're both gone. Dad is God knows where." He paused, and it felt right and weighty, "You and me. We're all that's left. So if we're gonna see this through, we're gonna do it together."

He looked at his brother expectantly. Was he still welcome is the thing, isn't it? He kind of just glossed over that part, assumed that--

"Hold me, Sam," the pain-in-the-ass implored, "That was beautiful." Dean touches his shoulder to match the joke, and he swats it away with a laugh.

"You should be kissing my ass," Sam pointed out, "You were dead meat, dude."

"Yeah, right," Dean said, "I had a plan. I'd have gotten out."

Sam looked at him as he boarded his car, amused and also, weirdly enough, believing in him. "Right."

He stepped into the car.

They drove on.

" " "

Another nameless motel bathroom, and again, he couldn't remember how he came to be there.

_You and me_, Sam's voice echoed in his head. And Sam's eyes, they bore into him, right to the very core of him.

Another eternal morning-night.

_We're all that's left..._

Another light splatter of blood on the sink.

_If we're gonna see this through, we're gonna do it together._

Another miserable night of smothered, bloodied coughing.

_...How can I tell you..._

_... that we're not_?

And for the life of him, he couldn't find the words--

_...Hold me, Sam...?_

_... no dude, like, _really_._

To be continued...


	2. Faith

Author:Mirrordance

Title:Once More

Summary:Life's almost good now that Sam's back on the road with him, but then the tumors are back too, and Dean thinks he might be dying again. Sequel to "One Night," and set during the episodes "Scarecrow" and "Faith."

**Notes**:

1. It is recommended that you read _One Night_ first, but not necessary. If you haven't read it or need a bullet-point refresher, _One Night_ is about Dean visiting Sam in Stanford the night before he was scheduled for surgery on his lungs to remove a tumor, to say his goodbyes just in case he doesn't wake up. He doesn't mention that he's sick at all, but they talk, he leaves, and a week later, Sam finds out. Sam wants to quit school to look after him so Dean ducks out, and pushes him away so that he stays in college. It's the last time they see each other before Dean visits him again in the series pilot.

2. Thanks to all who read, alerted and especially those who reviewed chapter 1! a more extensive thanks and replies will be posted on my afterword to this fic, as per usual, but I guess I just really, really had to say a quick and very heartfelt thanks to you guys, you really, really keep me productive haha. I'm just a few pages into chapter 3 so the next update won't be for awhile, and I'm also excited about my next project, but I guess I thought I'd post this new chapter now, all in the celebratory spirit of the upcoming season premiere this week haha! Anyway, hope you like this new chapter, and let me know what you think, c&c's are always welcome!

" " "

Once More

" " "

2: _Faith_

_Set During the Events of _"Faith"

" " "

Life was almost good, getting Sam back on the road with him. Why the blazes the damn tumors had to be back too was astonishing, but they were, and he was just going to have to find a way to live with that. Life was, after all, never supposed to be easy.

_Why_ was something he didn't usually bother with. It just _was_, and he just had to move on. The thing about moving on, though, was that sometimes, your legs got cut off from under you, and there was just no way forward anymore.

For instance, it took Sam a bit less than 24 hours back on the road with him to catch the smothered, midnight coughing. Something about his deeply concerned face told Dean that choking on one's own spit probably would fly even less this time. He was actually surprised it semi-flew the first time.

"Think I'm coming down with something," he growled, averting his eyes.

Sam could always kind-of fill in the blanks if he over-thought things, and Dean rightly depended on that. "You were tied up in that orchard for hours in the cold," he said under his breath, sounding really displeased. He reached out a hand to touch his brother's still-bruised forehead. Because Dean was grateful for the excuse he didn't have to make, he bit his tongue, stood still and took it like a man.

"You're kinda warm," Sam said, shaking his head in dismay, "We'll stay in for awhile."

They stayed at a motel for a few days, and Dean let himself be treated like a king. It was fun for awhile because when he wasn't coughing, he felt well enough to take advantage, and a worried Sam was unfalteringly indulgent. _Florence_ didn't quite cut it. Sam was like the madam of the fricking harem. It embarrassed Dean a little (or a whole lot), but he wasn't stupid or crazy, and he took what he could. Besides, the mere fact that he didn't have to struggle with quieting rough coughing in ugly bathrooms in the middle of the night was a relief in itself.

Of course, he wondered what he would do after Sam realizes the cough wasn't going away, or if his kid brother finally decides to drag his ass to the doctor's. He considered talking about the illness he thought he might have again, but changed his mind quickly, wishing he would just get caught instead. Sam was getting riled up about a conceptually light fever, so Dean was pretty sure drama queen would have a _cow_ if he found out the tumors were back.

_I mean I'd tell him eventually_, Dean thought, _Soon_, he corrected himself, inspired. He didn't plan on just keeling over and dying, leaving a stunned-surprised kid brother scratching his head. And the sooner he got around to it, the sooner he could possibly get help for himself. The operations have worked before, maybe they will again.

Still, he felt it was probably wise to bide his time a little on this... Sam was still reeling from the loss of Jessica. Screaming out his nightmares, trembling, shaking with the blinding fear and loss. And Sam had gotten worked up too, the first time Dean was ill a few years ago. To have to drag him back to this now... _god_, Dean couldn't stand the thought of doing this to him, not so soon after Jessica... And certainly not so soon after Sam had just said, _You and me. We're all that's left_.

Because if Dean was sick, that was almost like telling Sam, You're_ all that's left_. It was like telling Sam, _I'm leaving you_, and Dean was quite plainly not good at the leaving-thing.

_But I'll tell him_, he decided, _The time will feel right, and then I'd know what to do._

_" " "_

If there was one thing in the world that would have allowed Sam to let his sick older brother out on a hunt, it was missing kids. Two missing kids, a brother and a sister. When they got wind of the abductions in the town and mulled the possibilities in their heads, the picture kind of just got darker and darker, and suddenly they were on the road with careful rationalizations.

"You can heal up in the car," Sam had said, "I'll do all the driving."

"Stellar plan, bro," Dean agreed.

"I feel better," he would lie, hours later.

"You look better," his brother would agree.

And into the hunt they went, down a basement where, just minutes later, they would come out two kids safe, a monster dead behind them, an older brother damn-near-still-flat-lined on the wet floor, and Sam, who just did not know anymore what to do with the lot of them.

_Get Dean breathing_ was the obvious choice, and with that item ticked off the list, he had called 911. Everything when Dean stopped breathing, he remembered in astute detail. Like everything had moved in slow motion. Like every moment that Dean was frozen meant time stood still also. Like Dean had meant the world.

_You and me, we're all that's left_, he had said days ago and he knew, down in that stupid basement, exactly how true it was.

When Dean breathed again, everything moved extra fast, as if making up for lost time. The paramedics bearing him away, they were talking in alien gibberish. The kids were crying, and he couldn't understand anything anyone was telling him, which was probably why the cops quit on him and said they could just speak later, in the hospital.

He followed the ambulance in the Impala. The world breezed past his window. Time, time moving so fast. When was anyone going to turn off the fast forward? How long will it take for the frozen time to catch up and go back to the usual speed?

" " "

"I have your test results," the doctor told him, and he looked and sounded so grave that Dean was relieved Sam wasn't in the room. Out taking care of billing and the cops, he was told when he woke up a few minutes earlier.

"Would you want us to wait for your--"

_Hell no_, Dean thought, even as he just calmly lifted a hand and shook his head. "No thanks, doc. I think if you started it, I gotta hear the rest of it right now. My brother can play catch up later."

The man's lip curled a little in a merciful smile and Dean just _knew_ this was gonna be bad.

He's woken up in hospitals before, but this time felt much different. He's never been this... this _surprised_ to wake up before.

Because when he was told his heart had stopped a few times, he knew _exactly_ what they meant, and he knew he was in a lot of trouble. He had felt the jolt of his electrocution, like it was a kick from the inside on his chest, there was just something inside him that dully but deeply bucked, and his body burned from the inside-out. There was a snap, like his mind had cut itself off from his body, and his body cut itself up into independent little parts, all moving in different directions. Back arching. One foot kicking, one stretched straight and taut. Each of his toes trembling upward, downward, left, right... his face felt warbled, his eyes twitched, his teeth clenched, his tongue clucked, one hand clutched, one hand reached, fingers shook, arms trembled, signals all jumbled, like he can taste with his feet and see with his nose. He was torn apart to little, confused pieces. Was anyone supposed to live through that? Was anyone supposed to wake up from something like that?

_Match that up with Mr. Sympathetic here_, he thought, _And I think I might be a dead man_.

"The electrocution triggered a heart attack," the doctor explained, and went on to say the damage was so extensive that it irreparably damaged his heart. He was told that there was no pill, no operation, no transplant, no existing treatment whatsoever that was going to give him a decent chance at survival. He was told that he had been placed on a very unlikely transplant list, but that the doctor was sure there was no transplant board in any place in the world that would give him a heart, and there was no chance he would survive one that might be given to him.

_No chance._

_No chance_.

_I can't win._

_There's no contest, even_.

His mouth was dry. He always kinda felt he was going to die on the job. At odd days, he imagined he could appreciate that. All flame and no fading. Sometimes, he wondered if that was just rationalization, just resignation since he was sure that he pretty much didn't have a choice. This job would kill him, he might as well just see the sunny side of the street on that one. Or at least, as sunny as any side went for the job that he had. Other days though, the darker ones... he didn't think that would be so great. Old and gray and surrounded by a trophy wife and sons who looked like him and daughters who looked like their gorgeous mom, and Sam and their father who would be ancient by then, that, _that_ would be a dream.

Neither scenario was like the actual thing, though. He doesn't even get the time he would have had if, say, he had lung cancer or yet another damn misplaced bronchial ade-whatever in his lungs. He can't remember what that old thing was called now.

_Heart failure, of all things. _

_Feh_.

_One month maximum_.

Was life kind of made just to screw him over? If it's not one thing, it's another? Except this time, this was something he couldn't hide from Sam. No midnight coughing in ugly bathrooms, thinking, _I'll tell him tomorrow, I'll tell him tomorrow. _

_Back when I actually _had_ a tomorrow_.

_I'll tell him_, he had decided_,_ right? He told himself he would tell Sam everything when the time felt right.

_But there is just no right time to saying wrong things_.

There is no right time. There's just the time you said it, and the time after that. One moment things are one way and then these words dig a cliff in time and you go over and there's no turning back and everything is different on the other side.

Now he didn't have a choice. He did get what he wished for, right? Getting 'caught,' being forced into this situation?

He rubbed a hand over his face. The stupid wires attached to his body followed and tangled. He ignored them, for the most part.

_What am I gonna tell him?_

"I'm very sorry," the doctor finished, saying something more about some councilors in the hospital who could help him cope with his situation, and who could discuss options for admittance in an extended care facility, or a hospice where he could be more comfortable and have care for the rest of his days, whatever was left of it.

But Dean was stuck in _What-am-I-gonna-tell-him-land_. He was stuck, he couldn't get out.

_You and me, we're all that's left_, Sam had said.

_Find me the guy who has the balls to say, 'No dude, sorry. It's gonna be just you now,' _Dean thought_, I'll kiss his ass. I fricking would._

"Most people in your position would be in denial," the doctor began, and peered at him closely, as if expecting for it to suddenly materialize.

_No_, Dean thought. He's been resigned to the _I'm-dying_ thing since he stated hunting. This day was gonna come, and it'll always feel sooner than it should. He's accepted that for awhile. Besides, he had a _Florence-madam_ who can do the denial for him, didn't he? Two would be redundant. Denial was hard, let Sam do that.

"Then they become angry," the doctor continued, again looking at him as if he had conjured it out.

_I'm not angry_, Dean realized. He didn't regret the life he's lived. He didn't regret the things he's done. He doesn't mind dying for two kids and the job that they do. He wasn't angry at the monster that had brought him here, even, because it was faceless and nameless and one amongst a long list. As faceless and nameless as his mother's unknown killer. He wasn't even angry at god, who may or may not even exist. There wasn't anyone left, so what was the point?

"They bargain," the doctor went on, expectantly.

_The only thing I'll trade for is a ticket outta here_, Dean thought, _Nothing else you can give me and that I can even get for myself_.

"They get depressed."

_What am I gonna tell him_, and Dean knew this was a stage he can become well- acquainted with.

"Before they finally just accept the situation."

"Not my style to accept it, doc," Dean grinned at him, rakishly, "But I can live with this."

_And die with it_.

"Isn't it the same?" came the fair question.

"Nope," Dean said, shaking his head, "This sucks. But I can't do anything else." Acceptance was never resignation, no. Resigned, he could be. But accepting and understanding why shit like this had to happen to him or, in other matters, why Sammy was now going to have to keep looking for their father alone or why their father had to fight a war or why their mother had to die the way she did was something he could never do. Resigned, he could be. Accept? Who the hell was he, Mother Theresa?

The doctor looked confused. Dean was in no mood to elaborate.

"Your brother will be outside," the doctor said, tentatively.

_You wanna tell him or should I?_ was the unspoken question.

Dean found that he could still be unnerved and shit-scared about some things after all.

_You and me..._

_... We're all that's left_.

"You tell him," he said, gulping and feeling like a total wimp so he added, "You know. 'Cos he'll probably have questions I can't answer. Since you're the doctor," he added, uselessly, "You'll ah... probably know better. Tell him what you told me. But soften it a little, will ya?"

"What do you mean?"

"Skip the gory parts and the boring parts," Dean smirked at him, though they both knew that was as far as the humor went, it couldn't even go the short distance between his mouth and his eyes, "Tell him his brother's gonna kick the bucket in a month, nothing anyone can do about it and that you're like, _really_ sorry."

" " "

Sam didn't have questions.

"There's gotta be something you can do, some kind of treatment," was a statement. Action, all about action...

When the doctor said that he was _really _sorry, Sam had written the guy off after that. He didn't give a shit about apologies and regrets. He had to get to Dean. He had to see, see for himself what that crazy doctor was claiming. A couple of weeks? A month? Who was he kidding? Sam brought him back, right? They both rallied, down in the slow, oppressive dark. It's bright up here, and Dean was surrounded by professionals and medicine and machinery. How the hell could there be nothing that could be done _now_, when Sam had brought him back from the dead with nothing more than bare hands and desperate pleas?

He jogged toward Dean's room. As he neared the door, he realized that he didn't even know if Dean knew. He'd forgotten to ask the damn doctor. If his gut felt cold before, it had fallen somewhere he'd never get it back, now.

_What am I gonna tell him_? Sam asked himself.

The TV was on.

How could a guy, just back from the dead, flip through channels like a normal, impatient bastard and have just a few weeks to live? That made absolutely no sense, no sense at all--

Sam stepped inside before he lost his nerve.

Dean doesn't even look at him, and he knew_ then _that his brother knew, and Dean knew he knew, and Sam knew he knew he knew and so on, _crazy dance_.

"You ever watch daytime TV?" Dean asks, and his voice, it's kind of different. Duller already. Detached, pulled back from Sam, pulled back from reality. "It's terrible."

Sam finds looking at him unbearable too. Shakes his head in amazed dismay. _Joke, joke about this now, why don't you_. He took a deep breath, gathered his nerve. They had to talk about it, didn't they? That was how these things were supposed to go?

"I talked to your doctor," Sam said, gravely, and he couldn't quite find it in himself to look at anything but Dean's... chin. His older brother's eyes, he'd work his way up to later.

"That fabric softener teddy bear?" Dean asked, and still would. not. look. at. him. "Oh, I'm gonna hunt that little bitch down."

"Dean," Sam called to him, imploring. And it works, because it always does. Dean looked up at him in weary defiance, a quick, evasive glance.

"Yeah," he says, and leaves out the rest. _Yeah, I guess we gotta talk about this_, he meant. _Yeah, I guess we gotta get this off our chests. Yeah, I guess I can't ignore it. Yeah_. Dean was nothing if not economical after all.

He shuts off the TV, matter-of-factly, and it kind of reminded Sam of a man rolling up his sleeves, like he was getting ready to go do something dirty. Dean tosses the remote control aside. _All business now_?

"All right, well," he said, looking up at Sam tentatively, and it felt a little bit like an experiment, as if he was testing the waters, testing how far he could go or how cold it was, or how deep, "Looks like you're gonna leave town without me."

_Again, about the leaving_, Sam noticed.

"What are you talking about?" Sam asked him, staring now, because he wanted to be looked at, wanted Dean to be sure that he was not leaving this time, "I'm not gonna leave you here."

"Hey," Dean said, eyes set on Sam now, and maybe the leaving-thing was the clincher, "You better take care of that car. Or I swear I'll haunt your ass."

"I don't think that's funny," Sam pointed out.

"Aw, come on," Dean implored, and he was smiling a little, and his eyes were shining for the first time since Sam stepped inside that room and the world looked different, "It's a little funny."

It wasn't, but Dean's eyes _were_ shining and so Sam's lip quirked too, but that was the thing about dying big brothers trying to make you laugh. They do, and then you get sadder that they can, because when they're gone, no one else can make you laugh again. Sam lowers his head, looks out the window, because Dean's effort at strength was just crippling him, and there was a lump in his throat that had transformed into actual, physical pain. He's never had a hurt in his heart feel quite so physically pronounced.

"Look Sammy," Dean said, because the silence was oppressive, and Sam's anguish was stifling the room. And also because he's always been the one to break first, to talk first, to call first, right?

"What can I say, man, it's a dangerous gig," he said, "I drew the short straw, that's it, end of story."

"Don't talk like that, all right?" Sam begged, voice low, and he was feeling a little bit antsy and a lot desperate because Dean was looking at him with unmasked pity now, "We still have options."

"What options?" Dean asked, and his eyes deadened, kind of. Lost the pity, lost the unspoken apology, just exposed, naked hopelessness, "You got burial or cremation?"

And then Sam just found him _cruel_. He felt his face crumple in anger-disappointment. Why would he say that? Why the hell would he say that?

"I know it's not easy," Dean said, and Sam realized he was trying to break through what was so easy to construe as denial and looking straight at him now, as if willing him to believe, "But I'm gonna die. And you can't stop it."

Sam stared him in the eye and meant it too, willing _him_ to believe.

"Watch me."

" " "

_I don't want to watch anymore_, Dean thought, _It really very seriously fucking hurts to watch_.

He remembered Sam, the week after Jessica died. The Sam that alternated between the cold, brutal productivity of an angry soul and the despairing, black-hole version of the broken one. He shifted from hot to cold, never anything in between. That was murder/suicide-Sam, not the one that Dean knew, the Sam who just wanted to live out what life had to offer.

Back then, he'd known from caring for his occasionally, similarly anguished father (who was so much like his brother that it was scary) what to do. His job pretty much consisted of subtle suicide-watch, keeping Sam fed, reminding him to bathe, getting him out for some sun and air once in awhile, and managing the murder; orient him toward the mission. Liquor sometimes came into the picture. Sleeping pills too. He was noisy when Sam was quiet, and he listened when Sam spoke. He didn't press his brother for details, not even about the screaming nightmares. He kind of just... he led, he hovered, he shadowed... he molded himself on Sam's moods.

The Sam who was determined to defeat Dean's impending death was another character, and Dean didn't know what to do with him at all. Anytime he thought he knew his brother, something like this came up; a trait that was surprising and yet also weirdly appropriate. Maybe Sam had always been this way after all, except Dean had never been his realm of concern or obsession like this before. The full-throttle determination was once directed at his education or research for a hunt, in butting heads with their dad, in small things like ice cream, a movie, whatever. If Sam wanted something, he just got it. This time around, Dean was college and ice cream all at once, the focus of Sam's unstoppable single-mindedness. It was... kind of overwhelming. He felt like he was being swallowed whole.

As promised, Sam asked nothing of him but to _watch_, and Dean was in no position to counter him. He wasn't down with that, not really. Big brothers looked after you. They don't just _watch_. They don't just... don't just stay in a bed tanked up on whatever it is that was running on his veins to keep the pain at bay and this miserable life last _slightly_ longer and wake up once in awhile to _watch_ their baby brothers look worse every morning that he visited because he's been up all night, reading, while in the morning he's trying to amuse you. Big brothers don't just _watch _when their stupid six-foot-three siblings try to squeeze into a hospital chair with a frayed, old dark hoodie for a blanket in some form of helpless, mouth-hanging sleep because he's so fricking tired from trying to save your stupid life.

_Watch_, Dean scoffed, _My ass._

But if not that, then do what? Considering he couldn't seem to get off said ass in the first place, his options were remarkably few. Or so he'd like to think, when he wasn't lucid enough to admit they were actually more along the lines of non-existent.

_Burial or cremation_...

Sam came in at the very moment the visiting hours hit; sometimes earlier, depending on the nurse on guard duty. He left only when it ended, and spent the time catching the occasional, helpless shut-eye in between, chair for a bed and hoodie for a blanket, or getting some research done (not a lot, only when he thought Dean was asleep), or talking with Dean about random things. He brought in videos because daytime TV did suck, he brought in Dean's favorite food, which Dean would dutifully pick at and eat a little, all the while feeling Sam's eyes glancing and glancing at his progress, and Dean could read his face as thought after thought after thought raced past;_ is he eating? He should eat more. Maybe I should bring something else tomorrow. _Dean ate as much as he dared. It wasn't a lot; the illness and the medicines were dicking him around. He forced the food down the first day Sam brought them 'cos his younger brother looked so damn excited about it all. He lost that meal and the meal after that and the one after that during the night. He's become more cautious since.

The nights... the nights were rough. No Sam to comfort, no Sam to distract, no Sam to amuse. No Sam to pretend with. They traded roles too; sometimes, it was no Sam to comfort him, no Sam to distract him, no Sam to amuse him, no Sam to pretend with him. Either way, no Sam suddenly felt like nothing of anything.

It was harder to stay alive when you're alone at night. The silence was overwhelming. The pain was insistent, hard to ignore. And it was just getting too damn hard to breathe.

He'd almost forgotten about his lung thing. He had greater problems now obviously, not to mention the fact that some of his heart medicine and the machines that were helping him along had masked the symptoms. But he was in a hospital for crying out loud, right? If they couldn't find it, who could?

It didn't take the medicos long to spot the off oxygen levels. The doctor went through the patient history from Sam, found out about the long-gone lung tumors, and sent him up for a test – for the lungs this time, instead of the heart – and suddenly he was back with teddy bear again, highly impromptu this time, just the two of them just after the visiting hours ended and Sam had left.

"Mr. Birkowitz?" the Doctor had called from the door of his room, looking around and then up and down the corridor, "Your brother has left?"

"He's got a hot date," Dean said impetuously, the defenses going up again because he was really starting to hate the look of this guy, "What's up, doc? And call me Dean."

_Hell, call me Winchester while you're at it 'cos I'm dying anyway_.

"Dean," the doctor repeated, stepping inside the room hesitantly, "Your test results have come in."

"Lemme guess," Dean smirked, "You made a mistake and I'll live 'til I'm a hundred and forty-five?"

The doctor shook his head minutely, mixed dismay and amazement, reminding Dean of Sam.

"Hit me with your best shot," Dean said, even as his gut twisted and he wondered, _I'm dying already, how much worse could this possibly be_?

"Your old condition has returned," the doctor said.

"I figured," Dean shrugged.

"Your heart is not strong enough to handle the extra strain."

_Oh god_, he thought, and he suddenly knew where this was headed for sure.

"I'm afraid our initial estimates," the doctor went on, "Were made with a considerable lack of information."

"_Over_estimates now, huh?" Dean asked, his voice suddenly raw, "'S that it?"

"Do you ah..." the doctor hesitated, "Do you need someone? Should we call Sam? Arrangements can be made for Sam to be allowed in at this time."

He called Sam "Sam" and Dean "Mr. Birkovitz," Dean noted, inanely. Anyone who was exposed to Dean for a long period of time have learned to say his brother's name in a similarly familiar way.

"How long?" Dean asked, averting his eyes and clearing his throat, not-quite understanding how he was feeling about all this.

"Maybe," the doctor said, "A week more. A bit past, at most."

Kick in the gut.

No, kick in the damn balls.

You know you're dying and that hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. They say you get a month, and you work through a week of that, and then they tell you that the same amount of time that had just past - so quick - That's all you got left. That's all you got left.

"Okay," Dean breathed, hating his damned, cursed body. He closed his eyes for a long moment, wanting to escape.

"Okay?" the doctor repeated, confused.

"Yeah," and his voice wavered, damn it. He gathered his breath and opened his eyes and looked at the man. "You ah... anything else?"

"Anything else--!"

"If you got nothing else," Dean snapped, and he reigned in his temper because he was getting irrational and impatient, and he cleared his throat and gathered some form of reserve from _somewhere_, "If you could just... I'm tired," he finished, lamely.

"Of course," the doctor said, "I'll leave you to rest. Are you sure you do not want us to call--"

"'M sure," Dean said gruffly, wanting to just get rid of him, wanting to just fucking cry like a wuss, because he suddenly realized what it was he was feeling about all this.

_Cheated_.

Someone cheated him.

_Cheated_.

The doctor left the room. His chest – traitorous to begin with – rose and fell with each frustrated, inadequate breath. His throat hurt. It wasn't a lump there, it was a bowling ball. He's never cried for himself before, oh no. It wasn't cool, he didn't like the way it looked or felt, he didn't like what it meant.

But someone _cheated_ him and he was feeling like shit.

Tears streaked down his cheeks to the bed. He swiped at them angrily, but they were quickly joined by rivulets of comrades that seemed so angry at Dean that they all just fell in. Streak after streak after streak after streak.

Because he felt cheated out of the three weeks more he was supposed to have. Because he felt cheated out of a whole lot of things.

The time that had just passed by? It was quick. That's your benchmark. This time next week, you'd be snuffed out. Sam's driving the Impala, looking for your father, miserable about you in the day, and crying out his dead girlfriend's name at night--

He swiped at his eyes, let his gaze settle on the empty chair where Sam always sat or attempted to sleep. His brother's improvised, old blanket-hoodie was draped over the back, looking forlorn where he often left it now, for use whenever he visited his older brother.

Dean looked at the door, wondering if there would be anyone to see him, before he reached for it, hesitantly at first, until his fingers brushed the fabric and it felt familiar and assuring, and suddenly he couldn't have enough of it to hold. He stretched out by just a little; the seat Sam owned these last few days was never far from Dean's bed. He gripped the sleeves tightly, and pulled the hooded sweater closer.

_What a fugly shirt_, he thought, distractedly and disjointedly, even as he held it to his body, _He's got a right to know_.

_He should know the real deal. He should just stop looking for answers_, Dean thought, _Maybe we can just go somewhere nice_.

He played with the sleeve absently, slipping in one arm in the sleeve slowly, and the other gradually faster. His body knew what it was doing before he did. The more fabric touched his skin, the more it felt right, to be back in normal clothes. It felt like he was shedding old skin, like he was shedding his _dying _skin. Wearing the street clothes felt like he could get out of there. Like he could live longer. Or if not longer, at least live _more_.

_I'm getting out of here aren't I?_ he realized, and it hit him like a blast of ice-cold water.

The tears stopped. The breaths slowed.

He felt more alive already.

_I'm getting out of here_.

" " "

After he left for college and his father had written him off for ever, Sam could count with the fingers of a hand how many times he had called John Winchester.

The first one, was when Dean was a recovering runaway just after surgery a few years ago, and Sam couldn't find him. The thing with Dean was that if he was hiding, he was damn hard to find, and he gave Sam a nightmare searching. The thing with John though, was that at a word, he could summon Dean out. From _anywhere_, at one word. And so, biting back his pride, Sam had called him then, and the only words he heard from his father was _I'll take care of it_.

He didn't recall calling his father right after Jessica died. He might have. Dean surely did. But he himself... _god_, those days felt like a sluggish nightmare. He maybe drunk-dialed their father once. Twice. He honestly couldn't remember.

Dean hurt or dy-sick though, he could always call John for. _Always_, and though also always hurtful, there was a sense of ease about it too. He'd thought about why. Problems in school, problems with women... at odd moments he could call Dean. Or Dean would call and Sam would answer. _Whatever_. Dean was the go-to-guy. Anytime Dean was down though, there was no higher power, almost. No one. No one but dad, in whom Sam's faith might have been shaken, but someone he could trust to make things right just because _Dean _himself deferred to his authority. If Dean can't handle it, dad can. If dad can't, no one can.

"This is John Winchester..."

_Damned voice mail._

"If this is an emergency, call my son Dean."

_Great_, Sam thought. So where was he supposed to turn to now, if even dad was passing stuff along to Dean? Did he ever think about who was _Dean_ supposed to call? Does he _ever_ think?

"Hey dad," he breathed, pulling in his frustration, "It's Sam, uh... you probably won't even get this but, it's Dean."

He exhaled, like it was being wrenched out of him, "He's sick."

_God_, it was more painful than he thought. The helplessness of resorting to calling his father, the subject matter in the first place (Sick? Who was he kidding?), the frustration of all of his feelings and problems coming down to someone's too-calm voice mail.

"And, uh..." he's never said this aloud before, he realized, suddenly feeling sick himself, feeling ill. He's never said this aloud before...

"Doctors say there's nothing they can do."

_Gloss it over_, he thought, desperately, _Kill it, quick_. Kill the thought. Take it back. Make it not-real again.

"But uh... they don't know things we know right? So uh... don't worry 'cos I'm doing whatever it takes to get him better."

He nodded to himself. _Better_. That was better. The statement was better, and he can make Dean better. _Better_.

"All right," he said, "I just wanted you to know."

He hung up, and dropped the phone on the queen bed that's been more a desk than anything else since he started holing up in the motel near Dean's hospital. The place was a mess, as scattered as his thoughts.

_What to do, what to do_...

He bit at his knuckles. He would gnaw at them if he could, but that wasn't going to help anybody, was it? Least of all Dean? He looked at the miscellany of papers on the bed. Science, science fiction, supernatural, natural, all mucked up together in some effort to find an answer. He was getting desperate, wasn't he? Three weeks left, and that was really just gonna fly by. He had a lead, maybe two, but he was wary at best and cynical at worst, and time was just going bye-bye, wasn't it?

He glanced at his phone.

_Call me, dad_.

He wondered, if along the length of the time his brother and father hunted without him, if they ever came close to calling _him_. If Dean was seriously hurt, would their father call him? If their dad was seriously hurt, would Dean call him? There was a deluded part of him that had convinced himself that the answer was a breezy, unhesitant _Yes!_, and that the only reason they didn't call was probably because they didn't get hurt badly when he was away. But another part of him... _well_. Dean won't call him about stuff like that because Dean, though never saying so, always felt embarrassed about bothering him. He called for stupid little things, but not the ones that hit too close to home and to Dean, their father _was_ home. Their father hurting... no, Dean wouldn't call him for that. And John... well, John would never call Sam to tell him Dean was hurt or dying, because John Winchester _never _quit. To call Sam was like admitting that Dean was on his last legs, and on John Winchester's watch, that was simply never the case.

_Call me_, he thought again, hungrier now.

But a small and steadily growing voice in his head was asking, _But what if he has no answers? That the only man who can actually have answers has absolutely _nothing_?_

_In afterthought_, Sam reflected, _If that's the answer then maybe I don't wanna know... If you don't have the answers... Don't bother--_

A knock on his door.

He wasn't expecting anyone, and so he opens it warily.

The first thing he sees is his hooded sweatshirt.

_Of all things_.

But why wouldn't he see it first and foremost? It was cloaking a huddled, pale-faced broken figure, looking overwhelmed by the sweater's larger size and its dark color. He didn't see Dean at all until the second, disbelieving blink.

"What the hell are you doing here?!"

Dean leaned against the ledge and looked up at him with a weary smirk. It looked familiar, Dean standing hesitant on doorways with a wincing grin.

"I checked myself out," he said simply, stepping forward, gripping at any handhold to propel himself into the room and keep himself standing.

"Are you crazy?" Sam asked, watching him carefully, wondering when he was going to be allowed to help.

"Ugh," Dean breathed, said it like it was the plainest, most obvious thing in the world, "I'm not gonna die in a hospital where the nurses aren't even hot."

He grins at Sam rakishly, shrugs, opens up his palms – _What else is a guy supposed to do_?- and Sam still just watches; watches his body, watches his face. Something was wrong, his brother standing in that motel room the very least of it, especially since he's been more-or-less cooperative (or drugged to submission, _whatever_) in the hospital these last few days.

Sam looks away for the first time since his brother came in, and hides his unease by preoccupying himself with closing the door. "You know this whole I-laugh-in-the-face-of-death thing? It's crap. I can see right through it."

Dean stared at him for a beat, like asking, _What do you want from me anyway_? And Sam realized that he had said it without thinking. He was just kind of... tired. What did he want from Dean anyway? Did he want him to be more openly morose? Did he want him to be combative? Did he want him angry? What the hell did he want--

"Yeah, whatever dude," Dean said, glossing it over and looking away, turning away, limping away. Sam hesitated for just a moment, eyes shifting left, right, where to hold, where to reach. He stepped forward and let his instincts bring his hands to Dean's elbow and the small of his back. It was easier to help Dean when he wasn't looking at you. Like, if he didn't look at you, it wasn't real.

"Have you even slept?" Dean growled, suffering the assistance a little bit more than he could suffer his weakness on his own; breathless grunts escaped clenched teeth and he still had to make things about Sam, "You look worse than me."

"I've been scouring the Internet for the last three days," Sam explained, lowering Dean to a seat in the room, to both their reliefs. Sam sat across from his brother on the bed, saying, "Calling every contact on dad's journal."

"For what?" Dean asked.

"For a way to help you," Sam said, feigning as much confidence as he dared, "One of dad's friends, Joshua, he called me back. Told me about a guy in Nebraska. A specialist."

He winced inside. That was one way to think of it. He only had two leads, right? The better one he was wary about, the worse one he was cynical about, and those were their only two routes, it being that Sam had completely written off Dean's suggestions of _burial _or _cremation_.

"You're not gonna let me die in peace, are 'ya?" Dean asked.

"I'm not gonna let you die, period," Sam said, "We're goin'."

" " "

_Maybe it's not up to you_.

He woke up coughing in the oppressive dark of the motel room, choking because when he had only been lung-sick he could still stand and reposition himself, but now his weakened heart could not even accommodate him on that score anymore.

_Not up to me either I guess_, he thought, wondering as the world spun slowly and ever slower if he was going to die tonight, like, in the next five minutes.

But Sam was beside him – _what a chick_, but there was just one bed and they were both too tired to move rooms – and apparently, neither of them were willing to let that happen, at least tonight.

Sasquatch paws again, manhandling him. Hauled him up, and held him in what quite-suspiciously resembled a hug, _sneaky bastard_. Dean growled in disapproval, and to remind Sam that he wasn't that out-of-it yet.

"Sit up, bro," unnervingly calm voice underlined by carefully-contained blinding fear, and sometimes he could just marvel at his kid brother's bull-headedness.

"Breathe through it," Sam said, gently, rubbing his back, "Just breathe through it." And there was a _please_ at the end of that statement that made Dean think, _I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying, damnit--_

"God, Dean," Sam breathed, settling him against the headboard, hand on his back, hand on his chest, rubbing, soothing, warming. Dean groaned in pain as he caught his breath, then bit it back, self-consciously.

"Maybe," Sam stuttered, "Maybe you shouldn't have left like that. They could have given you something if we checked you out properly."

The coughs were subsiding with the changed position, but he still could not find the breath to speak. He shook his head vigorously, and Sam felt his movement in the dark and understood enough to just stay put and wait for an answer.

"That meds shit," Dean rasped, "Like being dead already."

He felt Sam's soothing hands stop moving for a second, before resuming their comforting circles. Dean sat still and closed his eyes, finding no strength or inclination to stop him, or pretend that he didn't need the grounding contact.

"Sorry," he told his brother, "Sorry."

"What on earth for," Sam murmured.

"Gets better in the morning," Dean groaned as he shifted, "I promise."

"I'm gonna get you some water," Sam said, softly, and Dean felt the hands move away from him, and his brother shift. He reached out blindly before he could think twice, and his fingers found his brother's forearm. Even in the dark, he knew just where to find his home-spot.

"I'm just gonna open the light," Sam explained, "And I'm grabbing you some water, okay? Just give me a sec, bro."

"Don't," Dean bit out. _Don't_. What the hell did he mean? Don't feel sorry for me. Don't go away. But most of all, don't open the light. Just..._Don't_.

"Dean?" Sam asked, and Dean felt him settle down again.

It was easier to be comforted in the dark, when he couldn't see Sam's tragically, uselessly determined face, when his own devastated one was obscured. _Don't open the light. Don't look at me like that. Don't look at me, period. I'm too tired right now, too tired to pretend, too tired of hiding things_.

"Maybe we shouldn't go to Nebraska," Dean gulped.

"No," Sam said, sounding angry, "No, Dean, okay? We're fighting this. You're not allowed to quit. You have to fight this with me, okay? You _have _to."

"Not up to me," Dean said, and his voice was shaking a little because he had a feeling he was gonna start talking, hidden in the dark of this room, and that really scared the shit out of him now, "Not up to you either, Sam."

"Sure it is," the reply was almost casual and simple, and it sounded like there was absolutely no doubt there, except Dean knew Sam enough to know that just couldn't be the case.

"Sam," Dean said, pained, and he winced in the dark, "Sam..."

_Don't bother with your heart specialist_.

_'Cos I got two things killing me now_.

_In a week, I'll be dead._

_Theoretically easy, right?_

_Executionally impossible._

_If we're gonna see this through_, Sam had said, _We're gonna do it together._

_Find me the guy who has the balls to say, 'No dude, sorry. It's gonna be just you now,' _Dean had thought, right?

_I'll kiss his ass. I fricking would..._

"Sam," and his voice broke, now, and he felt his face crumpling. Thank god for the dark, thank god for the dark...

"Dean..." Sam replied huskily, and Dean knew his younger brother knew about his damned tears. Well. As long as Sam started first, which Dean was pretty sure was the case anyway. Or at least, if it wasn't, he could always claim so.

"Maybe," Sam cleared his throat, and again that voice of his was gaining back that enviable control, "Maybe we should put you back. A day or two, you know, couldn't hurt, then let's check you out the right way. Make the road to Nebraska easier. A day or two back in the hospital, right? Couldn't hurt?"

"I don't—" Dean hesitated, "Sam."

_Sam. Sam_. Is that all he could say? He was sounding mentally-challenged.

_I don't have the time_.

"One week."

Palpable silence, and he could feel Sam trying to digest what he just said.

"Dean, what?" Sam asked, his tone patient, as if he was just trying to clarify something, "You want to stay in the hospital longer than a few days?"

_One week_.

"All I got left," Dean growled out, so there.

_There_. Out now. It's out there.

_Three. _

_Two. _

_One--_

"What?!"

_Right on cue_.

He felt Sam's disbelief and frustration, felt him moving away, probably reaching for the damn lamp again, wanting to look at him, wanting to illuminate the room and the whole damned situation. Dean gripped him tight.

_Don't_.

And Sam got him and subsided warily, with that _For now _caveat.

"The thing," Dean gulped, finding courage in the dark, "The one from before, my lungs. It's back. With the heart, and it's just not looking so good, Sammy. They told me tonight. It's not a month anymore."

Sam was deathly silent.

"I'm sorry," Dean felt weirdly compelled to add, and Sam was still quiet. Now_ he_ wanted to turn on the light, but he was afraid about what he'd see, and what he'd show.

He could feel his brother trembling beside him.

"Sam, I'm sorry--"

"Shut up," Sam snapped.

Dean did as he was bid, knowing his brother was trying to figure out what to do, and the room was quiet in the night. So quiet he even wished for the occasional argument or annoying happy-sounds they could hear from their motel neighbors, or the sound of traffic from outside, anything at all, not this death, death of sound stifling an already anguished room.

Sam's trembling stopped abruptly.

Dean wondered what it meant.

"Get some rest," Sam said, again with that inhuman calm, "We're still going."

"But Sam," Dean pointed out, breath catching at another coming cough, "I just said it's not just the heart now. This specialist guy there probably can't fix--"

"_I'll_ fix it," Sam said, emphatically, "_I'll _take care of it."

"You gotta stop saying things like that," Dean told him.

"Just because you've given up doesn't mean--"

"I'm not giving up," Dean snarled at him, "Damn it, Sam. I don't know what you're thinking, all right, but I don't wanna die, okay? I don't. Even if I did, I'm not a heartless son-of-a-bitch, right? Gimme some credit here, bro. Heart's damaged but it ain't cold yet and it sure as hell is still in here. I'm not gonna piss it all away..." his voice drifted, unable to say the rest of the thought:

_Not while you're trying so hard._

_I got no right to do that to you_.

_I'd live forever if I fricking could, the way you're busting your ass._

"Then what?" snapped Sam, "Huh? What?"

"You gotta stop thinking it's up to you," Dean told him, gentler, "Okay? You gotta. 'Cos this guy in Nebraska probably can't do a thing. You're not likely to find anyone who can. Not 'cos you failed, but 'cos there's no one out there. You think stuff like that and when I kick it, you're gonna think it's all your fault. So make no promises, okay?"

"Nope," Sam said, simply, "Can't do that."

"Why the hell not?"

"'Cos you're my brother," Sam said, "And it _is _up to me. Up to me to look after my pain-in-the-ass brother."

Dean smiled a little at that, in the dark. "That's _my_ job."

"No it's not," Sam said primly, "'Cos _I'm_ not a pain-in-the-ass."

"_Really_?" Dean asked him, exaggeratedly dubious and amazed.

"You can try and take the job back when you're better, Dean," Sam told him, and Dean could hear his face lightening a little too.

"If I get better," Dean pointed out.

"_When_," Sam promised.

"It's not a promise if I don't believe it," Dean told him warily.

"Then there's no problem," Sam said, didn't bother saying out the rest, because they both knew what it was:

_'Cos you've always believed in me._

To be continued...


	3. Forward

Author:Mirrordance

Title:Once More

Summary:Life's almost good now that Sam's back on the road with him, but then the tumors are back too, and Dean thinks he might be dying again. Sequel to "One Night," and set during the episodes "Scarecrow" and "Faith."

**Note**: It is recommended that you read _One Night_ first, but not necessary. If you haven't read it or need a bullet-point refresher, _One Night_ is about Dean visiting Sam in Stanford the night before he was scheduled for surgery on his lungs to remove a tumor, to say his goodbyes just in case he doesn't wake up. He doesn't mention that he's sick at all, but they talk, he leaves, and a week later, Sam finds out. Sam wants to quit school to look after him so Dean ducks out, and pushes him away so that he stays in college. It's the last time they see each other before Dean visits him again in the series pilot.

" " "

Once More

" " "

3: Forward

_Set During the Events of _"Faith"

" " "

Sam loved that dark hooded shirt and he had a feeling he wasn't going to get it back until Dean felt better, if he was _ever_ going to get it back at all.

When Sam offered Dean something more comfortable to sleep in the night before, Dean just groaned and clung to it tighter, and Sam let him be. The next morning, as they prepared for their drive to Nebraska, Sam offered him something warmer for the road. Dean waved him away and muttered something about Sam having to pry it from his "Cold, dead hands." Sam rolled his eyes at Dean, and forced a jacket over the hoodie just to keep him warm.

It was an old damn shirt, right? But he remembered the exact circumstances of how he had acquired it. He had a feeling Dean didn't, though.

Sam handled being sick better than surly Dean did, just as Dean handled caring for a sick brother better than a nerve-frayed Sam did. Now if they both just stuck to their respective specializations, Sam's life would be easier. But then Sam was a quick study too, and he had learned from the best.

_Sam was sick coming off a hunt; sick getting into it too in afterthought, but much worse by the time they went back to their motel. That was years ago, when there was three of them, him, Dean and their dad. If John noticed, he said nothing at all. But somehow, there had been no job until Sam got better, and they stayed longer than they usually did in the place._

_Dean, on the other hand... he always said Sam was the mother hen, but god knew he invented the style himself. Takes one to know one. He kept bringing in Sam's favorite food, or food that was always warm and uncomplicated. The heat in the room was always high even while he suffered it. Every time Sam woke, Dean was awake, reading something nearby. Gawking at a car or skin mag, or blanching at Sam's current crop of non-fiction. Their father was almost always on the phone, or out of the room being useful somewhere, but Dean was always there. Once, he woke to Dean getting their things together, apparently to go to the laundromat. His older brother looked as dismayed about one of Sam's jackets as he had been when Sam had woken to him making an effort to read Thomas Friedman._

_"What?" Sam rasped from the bed. He wasn't surprised that Dean wasn't surprised he was awake; didn't jump, barely even looked up._

_"This thing looks smaller every time I see it," Dean said, raising an eyebrow at him. The two of them usually washed their clothes separate, and the implication was clear: Sam was not very good with his laundry._

_He may have blushed a little, except it was hard to tell since the fever had him feeling flushed all the time. "Maybe I'm just getting bigger."_

_"Yeah, yeah," Dean mumbled, settling Sam's clothes, "Always walk on the sunny side of the street, right? You get any bigger and I'm calling Guinness, Sasquatch. I'm hitting the 'mat. I got some of your stuff, germ-boy. They're stinking up the place."_

_He left and came back with the new dark, hooded sweatshirt. Brand-less, fuss-less hooded shirt. Good material, sturdy, straightforward. Dean looked deeply embarrassed about it, scratching his neck and making disclaimers as he cut out the tags with his handy knife._

_"I mean it's not much," he rambled, not meeting Sam's eyes as he worked, "If you don't like it, I can keep it."_

_It was almost two sizes too big for him._

_"And I was just passing by this place and saw it lying around."_

_Except there were no clothing stores near the laundromat or their motel that Sam had noticed._

_"But anything's better than the amazing shrinking jacket, right?" Dean asked, handing him the hoodie, "Maybe that's why you're sick. Lightweight caught a breeze in his shrinking jacket."_

_Sam kind of just looked at him knowingly and took the present. "Thanks, Dean," he said, simply, because anything more would have embarrassed Dean to his toes, the consequences of which were never pretty and something with which Sam would have to live. But he loved the shirt, loved the thought, loved his brother all the more._

_"And wash the damn thing right this time," Dean said as he walked off to pick up his magazine and take over his usual seat._

He did. Even now, the color and the material was almost like the day Dean had brought it in, except a little bit more well-worn and that just worked all the better for it. Sam still wore it often, many times not thinking about why it felt right, just that it did. When he was feeling tired or ill when he was in school, when he was lonely at Christmas, when he was cramming for a final. When he was sitting in a cold hospital room watching his brother die...

He never told Dean all that, but he's been a hunter long enough to understand that inanimate objects gained some sort of character with constant use. They were brothers; Dean wouldn't have missed Sam's attachment to the thing, which was _far _subtler than Dean's Impala-thing, but still, there it was.

He glanced at his sleeping brother on the passenger seat next to him, huddled in jacket and said hoodie, deeply under.

Dean had turned up the music extra loud the moment they pulled out of the parking lot. Sam wondered about that, until Dean fell asleep five minutes into the ride and Sam heard his wheezing, labored breath beneath the blasting sound of music, realizing that it was probably what Dean was trying to mask. The un-missable sound of harsh breathing still turned Sam's blood cold for the first hour on the road though.

He was just getting used to it when it stopped, and he perforce stopped the car abruptly, just to see if Dean was actually still _breathing_. Dean immediately blinked awake at the halt, and frowned at Sam.

"You okay?" he asked, rubbing sleep from his face.

Sam stared at him, realized he had to read Dean's lips over the music. He turned the radio off. "Yeah," he said, dumbly.

"Dude, what?" Dean asked, irritably, "You gotta take a piss or something? We just left the--"

"No," Sam said quickly, beginning to drive again, "No, no."

"You're so weird," Dean murmured, settling back on his seat. He closed his eyes wearily, but Sam could tell he was going to be awake for awhile now, tired, but still watching over his younger brother as best he could.

"You can go back to sleep," Sam felt compelled to say.

"I am," Dean lied, mildly. Sam let it go, grasped at something else.

"In Indiana," he began hesitantly, "You said, 'Hell I wish.'"

"Yeah?" Dean asked, keeping his eyes closed, "I know how the rest of that goes. Hell I wish you'd shut up right now."

"We were talking about--"

"I know what we were talking about," Dean told him, grumpily.

_You've always known what you want,_ Dean had said, _And you go after it. You stand up to dad, you always have. Hell I wish I--_

"What was the rest of it?" Sam asked, earnestly.

"Can't remember," Dean mumbled, opening one eye and then the other, looking at Sam with veiled eyes that artificially lightened in his attempt at game-face humor, "Not hard to imagine there's lotsa things I wish I said to the obsessed old man, right? I mean I love the guy, but he's nutty sometimes."

Sam glanced at him, wondered if he should take the bait and help keep up the face. Dean's eyes were quietly begging him to cooperate.

The effort felt like it was being dredged out of him. It was eviscerating, and ill-timed. The response was delayed, lame and transparent. But he could always trust Dean to pick up the pieces, couldn't he?

"You wished you told Dad he's 'nutty?'"

"He is sometimes!" Dean insisted, smiling lighter now, apparently in relief. He looked away from Sam, out toward the road. He frowned at the extended thought of their dad though, and Sam feared having to breach this topic.

"Wonder where he is," Dean murmured, "Hope he's all right."

'Cos though they never talked about it, they both sure as hell knew Sam tried calling him.

Sam was going to say _I'm sure he's fine_, until he realized that he almost wished his father was occupied or mildly hurt somewhere, because that was the singularly acceptable reason for him not being here with them, what with Dean _dy_-sick. There was no other acceptable excuse. Even going after the thing that killed their mother, that was nothing next to your son being so badly sick. A two-decade old vendetta is supposed to be nothing compared to your devoted son being so badly sick.

"He'll be okay," was the diplomatic response. John Winchester may or may not be okay, but he will be either way. So there.

"Hey Sam," Dean said, looking away now, out toward his window, maximizing his distance in that small space.

"Yup?"

He heard Dean chuckle a little and shake his head, self-deprecating.

"Dean, what?" Sam asked.

"You remember that night?" Dean asked, "You know, raining cats and dogs and everything, and there was this party at your place."

_Of course _Sam remembered that night. Dean standing on his dorm door, expecting to be invited inside. And Sam didn't. And Dean walked away. And then Dean changed his mind, because later, Sam would find out that his brother feared it may have been his last chance to see Sam.

"Yes," Sam said, simply, because sometimes there was just so much to say that there was nothing to say.

"Before I went to see you," Dean said, chuckling and shaking his head at himself again, "I wrote this letter to dad. Lame, right? But he took off somewhere, I couldn't raise him, kinda like now. Had to find a way to tell him I thought he was nutty, right?"

_Among other things_...

Sam blinked at the road, couldn't even find it in himself to pretend-laugh at that.

"I was kinda blasted," Dean said, still looking away, "Had a lot on my mind. You know when you hide stuff that's important and then you kind of just forget where you put them? It was like that. I still don't know where that damn thing is. If you ah... if you find it..."

"No," Sam said, flatly, "We're not having this conversation."

"Not even at the wish of a dying--" Dean began to joke.

Sam pulled the car over, and turned on the music. Dean reached over and smartly tuned it off. Disbelieving, Sam turned it back on. Eyes wide in irritation, Dean turned it back off.

"Dean!" Sam exclaimed, turning it on again, and keeping his arm in Dean's reaching way, "This is stupid!"

"You're acting like a kid!" Dean hissed in his ear as he maneuvered, but he was tiring quickly, and he sank back in his seat in a huff. And actually pouted.

Sam took a deep, calming breath. He sat back too, as the radio blasted out _Hot Blooded_. He laugh-sobbed to himself, and he reached over and turned it off.

"God," he said, running a weary hand over his face, before making a decision, "One time."

"What?" Dean asked, his voice low and wary, still irritated, but hopeful.

"One time," Sam said, turning to face him, "Anything you wanna say about this, bro. Just this one time."

"Well..." Dean hesitated now, and his cheeks actually flushed, "I mean, _you're_ the one who always wants to talk..."

Sam waved this away vaguely, knowing the chick-quip was coming up again. "Yeah, yeah, so you're doing this for me, right?"

"'Course!" Dean said, "'Cos I'm--"

"An awesome big brother," Sam finished for him flatly, "I know, I know."

Dean's eyes shone, and he smiled at Sam in this open way that Sam seldom saw. Like _wide_ open, game face out and gone. _Awesome big brother_, without the joke now, just that he simply thought he was. They were getting somewhere now, but if it was because Dean was dying, it wasn't somewhere Sam wanted to go.

"Dad's letter," Dean said, "I'm so sure it's just lying around here somewhere. If you find it... it'll really save me the trouble of writing out a new one."

"Letter, car, got it."

"And clean her up too while you're at it," Dean said, brightly.

They exchanged sour looks.

Dean broke it first. He looked pensive, as he bit his lip. "And ah... just in case it wasn't obvious, you know, given our line of work... But you're kinda dense sometimes, so I gotta say, ah... Cremation."

Sam was going to be indignant and angry, until he remembered that he had foolishly sanctioned this period of free mortality-speech time. He set his jaws and nodded.

"If you can't find dad," Dean went on, "Go see Bobby. Do not, for crying out loud, hunt alone. I'm a great guy, you know, so if this doesn't work out, I'm sure you're gonna be devastated."

Sam wanted to kick him. But he just nodded.

"If you wanna," Dean gulped, "If you wanna sell the car and go back to school..."

_I'll haunt your ass_?

"I won't be mad," Dean said, averting his eyes, and Sam was relieved because his own were welling up rather miserably too, "You should do what you want. You got rights to. And you'd make it all worth it, I know that. But uh... call up dad's pals. Give 'em first dibs on the price. They've been eyeing her since forever, and if they buy it, at least in some way, you know, she stays in the family."

"But it's the_ Impala_," Sam said, a little bit awed, very much humbled, not saying _It's your favorite thing in the world._

Dean smiled to himself and just shook his head in amusement, still looking away. _Second _favorite thing in the world, apparently, Sam realized, and it didn't have to be said.

"Don't kill yourself going after this thing," Dean went on, "Don't let dad do it either. Demon-bastard's taken our mom and Jess, you know. In a way, he took dad too. In a way, he's taking me out too, since we got into this hunting thing. So uh... don't kill yourself going after it 'cos if you did, he'd have nabbed us all. Which is decidedly un-cool."

Dean knew him well enough not to ask him to promise. It was just a reminder, since the promise was something Dean must have known Sam could never explicitly give him, not with how he hurt over their mother and Jess.

"I uh..." Dean scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, "And there's this chick up in New Jersey. I think I uh... left her a souvenir."

Sam's eyes widened, "Holy crap, Dean! Are you saying you have a k-"

"I'm just _kid_ding," Dean grinned at him, cheekily, diffusing the thickness of the air. He laughed wholeheartedly, coughed at the gusto but went on just the same, "You are so _easy_ sometimes, bro."

"You're a jerk," Sam told him.

Dean shrugged in that self-aware, pain-in-the-ass way again.

"My turn," Sam declared.

"What do you have to say?" Dean asked, brow raising, "Isn't this limited to the dying brother's privilege?"

"You can consider everything you said forgotten if you don't agree to what I have to say," Sam said, sternly.

"You're gonna bully the sick guy?!"

"Yes," Sam said, plainly, "It's a cruel world, Dean, live with it."

Dean snorted at him, but looked at him expectantly.

"You're gonna give this thing a chance," Sam proclaimed.

"I am giving it a chance, that's why I'm here," Dean pointed out.

"You're gonna give _everything_ I toss your way a chance," Sam said fervently, "_Everything_ we find. You're not allowed to give up, not when I haven't."

"You know I won't," Dean told him, quietly.

"To the very last minute," Sam emphasized, "Every route we can find, right down to the very last minute."

"I won't give up, not when you haven't," Dean said, quiet, but weighty.

Sam nodded gravely, accepting this. He turned back to the wheel of the car. "Okay."

"Okay," Dean agreed.

Sam gunned the engine. "One more thing."

"What?" Deana asked.

"Don't _I_ get a letter?"

"No, 'cos I sound better live, smart-ass."

" " "

Nebraska

" " "

Dean did exactly as he promised.

Called his brother a lying bastard, sure, but that wasn't a surprise considering the Stanford undergrad did in fact, knowingly and intentionally mislead his older brother into a faith healer's tent.

But Dean had promised, hadn't he? And he kept to his promises, because he wasn't a lying bastard, not like some _other_ people. He promised... anything Sam shoved his way, _anything_ at all, he would try. He wasn't allowed to give up, not for as long as Sam was fighting. He couldn't leave him like that.

He never promised he won't bitch about it though.

So he stepped out of the car, and whined. He walked on the uneven, muddied ground beneath freezing weather and a light drizzle and whined some more. He grudgingly let himself be bullied into sitting by the front damn rows during the service. He even let himself be coaxed into the damned stage.

"What are you doing?" Sam had asked when he hesitated and declined, as if he was ready to break out the _but-you-promised-me_ card.

Dean stayed in his seat because he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this wasn't going to help him. He stayed seated because he was ashamed of being prayed for and being helped by a man he just dissed. He held his seat for a lot of reasons.

"Get up there," Sam said, enthusiastically. His eyes were afire and alight and alive. His lips were almost smiling. He was fucking applauding with the flock. He was... _all hope_, Dean realized and suddenly, Dean felt that he would have given him the world.

He got _up there_.

"No offense," he told the Reverend when he got up to the stage, "But I'm not really a believer."

"You will be, son," LeGrange promised, "You will be."

He caught Sam's face one more time. Sam's lip quirked, and he jerked his head as if saying, _Give it a shot_.

They prayed, Sam not at all the least amongst them.

" " "

Sam watched his brother sway, and fall to his knees. It took everything he had inside him, _everything he had_, to keep from shooting forward and catching him. Nothing was ever supposed to bring Dean to his knees,_ nothing_.But healing looked like this, right? This was how it was supposed to be, this was exactly how it was supposed to be, especially when it was working right, and this is good for D--

Dean lilted, and crumpled to the ground.

There was no stopping Sam now.

The flock was applauding their appreciation of the miracle, and Sam just could not think of anything else but his brother collapsed in a heap on the ground.

"Dean!" he cried, jolting forward, reaching, holding, gripping, thinking, _Was this the right thing, was this the right thing_?! Because if LeGrange was a fraud, and his brother was unconscious on the ground out of exhaustion or another attack, or if he was somehow drugged or anything like that, then Sam had basically just doomed him, and--

Dean gasped awake, eyes open but unseeing.

"Say something," Sam told him, desperately clutching him, but Dean was hearing nothing, seeing nothing.

_If you're well_, Sam thought, _Why aren't you with me_?

Dean struggled up, and Sam supported his back, biting his lip and trying to be patient, because maybe, just maybe, it was a little too much to ask for his brother to be on-point just after being cured of certain-death.

Dean stared LeGrange's way. The Reverend looked pleased by his work. Sam looked back down at Dean, whose eyes had hardened as his posture stiffened. Sam held him tighter, but it felt as if Dean couldn't even tell he was there.

"Is he," Sam hesitated, turning to LeGrange, "Is he healed, I mean..." he couldn't find his breath, couldn't find the words, felt the sputtering need to explain, in the hopes of finding an answer, "There was something with his heart, and his lungs, and the doctors said, one week. One week. But is he done? Is he supposed to come in for another session, is he fully or only partly better? Is he better?"

LeGrange was smiling at him beatifically, looking patient and understanding. Or maybe he hadn't heard, over the din of the cheers. Sam opened his mouth to speak louder.

"The doctors said he just had one week," he said again, and he realized this is the most number of times he had ever said that painful, wrenching, fact, as if hope that Dean's illness was gone had drawn out his greatest fear that he could be wrong, needing some form of assurance, any form of assurance now, _any_--

Dean's hand shot up and gripped his sleeve.

_Don't_, Dean had said, the last time he did that, and that night, Sam knew he had his brother for far less time than what was first thought. He looked down at his brother.

_Don't say anything_, Sam now implored him, _Don't say anything I don't want to hear._

"I'm fine, Sammy," came the standard, unconvincing rasp.

Sam, in accordance to habit, didn't take his word for it, and looked instead to LeGrange who, with his wife ever-beside him, dropped to a knee before the Winchester brothers.

"They said he had a week?" Sue Ellen asked, with a small smile, "Poor boys, having to hear that. He'd be the most ill we've ever healed here."

"Healed?" Sam asked again, "I mean, fully? Healed, right? Fully?"

"The Lord does nothing halfway, young man," LeGrange said, "But I do not discourage the course of science. Take him to a doctor, and see for yourself the miracle that has been done here. Let their science be another language of God to you, let it speak to you. Let it make you believe."

Sam nodded at them hastily, and gathered his brother in his arms. Dean clung at his sleeves, initially seemingly uncharacteristic, although... anytime he thought he knew his brother, something like this came up; a trait that was surprising and yet also weirdly appropriate. Maybe Dean had always been this way after all, except Sam hadn't ever been privy to the openness of his need before. He helped Dean sit up, and his older brother sagged against him dizzily.

"Give him time," Sue Ellen said, mildly, unworried, "It is tiring business walking from the edge of death."

"Get me out of here," Dean breathed against Sam's shoulder, just for his ears. Sam held him tighter and nodded.

"I think I need to get him some air," Sam murmured, even as he looked up at the Reverend and his wife, letting his unabashed, unrestrained gratefulness pour into them.

"Thank you," he said, simply.

Sue Ellen nodded at him and smiled again.

"Thank your God instead," LeGrange reminded him.

Sam rose to his feet, dragging Dean up with him. He's never been so relieved to be bigger than his older brother, as he carried most of Dean's weight. Dean trembled a little, inexplicably, huddled underneath his left shoulder, face pressed against Sam's chest, as if ashamed and hiding, and Sam steered them forward and held his brother by the elbow.

Dean suddenly felt small next to him, something he needed to protect, something he needed to hide. He didn't want the smiling, praying flock to look at him, not when his game was so off, not even with their best intentions.

_This is mine_, was the weird, prevailing feeling and, steering them forward, with Dean barely bearing his own weight and also assuredly not looking wherever he was being steered by Sam, felt like driving the Impala. It was trust, and the rare relinquishing of Dean's control. Sam again, never felt so empowered and so scared in his life. He wondered if this was how Dean always felt about looking after him, all the time...

_Take the job back when you're better, Dean_...

_I'm tired._

_Please take the job back now_.

" " "

Sam fell asleep after settling Dean down in bed in some motel somewhere.

He was so tired, just so tired, and Dean had looked up at him with these open eyes as he let himself be tucked in, searching for something in Sam's face that he just simply didn't understand. It stripped him naked too, and he was too tired to fill up the quiet.

Sam fell asleep shortly after that, deep and dreamless and miserable with weariness and uncertainty. He was disarmed, not knowing if their last chance had worked and if it did, how well. Not knowing if he should still be looking for something else.

When he woke up, the bed beside him was empty save for the crumpled sheets and, on top of them, his hooded sweatshirt, the one immaculate thing on the bed, folded neatly, seemingly with infinite care.

The shower was running in the bathroom.

He could smell fresh coffee from the pot.

His eyes watered in relief.

Sam looked at the bathroom door, wondering if Dean would be coming out soon and see or him, because he was, he gulped, going to start full-on crying, wasn't he? Like an honest-to-goodness, embarrassing jag?

He gasped, trying to restrain the happy-miserable laugh-sob. It sounded too loud in the damned small, quiet room. He reached for the hooded sweatshirt and pressed it against his face, stifling the embarrassing noise. The fabric felt familiar and assuring, and suddenly he couldn't have enough of it to hold. He pressed it closer, and thought that maybe he's even done this before.

_Mine again now_, he thought.

_'Cos Dean's better._

_Dean's better_.

He heard the shower stop running.

Sam tried his damnedest to make his nose and eyes do the same thing. It was damned hard, and he knew he looked nothing close to decent when Dean finally opened the door, looking shower-fresh and standing tall. No longer pale and hunched, no longer hesitant and, Sam realized now, afraid. There was still something darkening his eyes, face clouded by puzzlement, suspicion, Sam wasn't sure. But the first step was to make him healthier, and everything else, everything else they can weather together.

"We're going to the doctor," Sam told him, voice already smaller, tone already more hesitant than _Watch me_, or _I'm not gonna let you die period_, or _You're gonna give everything I toss your way a chance, everything we find._

Sam knew it was the last, the last thing he would demand of Dean this strongly, his last demand as acting-older-brother while the real one was on sick leave. He wondered if Dean knew it too.

Dean stared at him for a long, quiet moment. He was jarred, something was bothering him, something had settled a film in his eyes. Was it a remnant of sickness? Sam wasn't sure, he couldn't tell, just yet; there have been sides to Dean in this hellish week that he's never known before.

But whatever Sam saw, it was hidden and tucked away, for now. Dean glanced from him to the tear-stained hoodie now on Sam's bed. Sam didn't know what he was seeing in Dean's eyes, but Dean apparently knew what he was seeing in Sam's red-rimmed ones.

"Okay, Sammy," he said, quietly, "You got it."

To be concluded in an Epilogue and Afterword!


	4. Epilogue and Afterword

Author:Mirrordance

Title:Once More

Summary:Life's almost good now that Sam's back on the road with him, but then the tumors are back too, and Dean thinks he might be dying again. Sequel to "One Night," and set during the episodes "Scarecrow" and "Faith."

**Note**: It is recommended that you read _One Night_ first, but not necessary. If you haven't read it or need a bullet-point refresher, _One Night_ is about Dean visiting Sam in Stanford the night before he was scheduled for surgery on his lungs to remove a tumor, to say his goodbyes just in case he doesn't wake up. He doesn't mention that he's sick at all, but they talk, he leaves, and a week later, Sam finds out. Sam wants to quit school to look after him so Dean ducks out, and pushes him away so that he stays in college. It's the last time they see each other before Dean visits him again in the series pilot.

" " "

Once More

" " "

Epilogue

_Set During the Events of _"Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things"

" " "

He sat on the hood of his car, wondering how the words would come out of him.

In a fair world, the two of them wouldn't be hurting at the same damn time.

But if one was to argue that, then in the first place, they wouldn't have lost their mother the way they did, or their father the way they did, or anyone else losing anyone else anywhere else in the world.

He had once stopped asking why. _Why_ was something he didn't used to bother with. Things just _were_, and he just had to move on. But his legs got cut off from under him, and Sam wasn't in any position to carry his weight this time, and there was just no way forward for either of them anymore.

When their mother died, he had carried his baby brother out their burning home, and had carried him out a lot of places since. Dragged, when Sam got _way_ bigger, but figuratively speaking, _yeah_. Dean was proud of himself as an older brother, he damned was. He knew what he'd done for Sam, it was a huge part of who he was. Sometimes, it was all that he was.

He'd borne Sam's weight over Jessica's death. He'd borne Sam's grievances over his emerging _Shining_. Sam in turn had carried him over his illnesses, had carried him over his guilt over living when someone else had to die for him.

This round, though... this damned, stupid round...

_How many people have to die for me to live_, Dean wondered, because the first time had been brutal and that was just a stranger, but this second time...

_Dad,_ he thought up to his old man, _You selfish bastard. What the hell did you do? What right did you think you have? What damn right did you think you have?_

It was their first shared loss since their mother died. Sam, feeling guilty over his anger at his now-dead father, and feeling a deep and profound fear of his destiny. And here too was Dean, guilty over... over living, because he knew, _knew _in his damn bones that his father had died for him to live. And then it was compounded by that other thing. The un-mentionable thing. The thing dad said he might have to do, to Sam. That un-mentionable thing.

_Too much. Too damn much..._

_I can't carry you this time, bro_, Dean thought, _I'm tired. I'm tired._

And Sam couldn't carry him either, despite what he liked to think.

_"You won't let me help you!" Sam had told him._

_"I can take care of myself, thanks_."

_"No, you can't!" Sam had argued, "And you know what? You're the only one who thinks you should have to_."

But it hadn't been that. He's let Sam help him before, right? Standing at his doors and trying to pretend he needed nothing. He's sought him out all the time, before. Sure, there was nothing vaguely normal about how he asked for help, but still. Sam got it somehow, and Sam did what he had to. But this time... it was the blind leading the blind here, two cripples crawling, two logs cut at the base, slamming against each other.

_You can't help me, Sam_.

_I got nothing left inside_, Dean thought, _Nothing left_.

_Dead_.

_And what's dead should stay dead..._

"I'm sorry," he began, because that was always a decent way to start.

"For what?" Sam asked, quietly, as if afraid that if he said or did anything too quick, or too imposing, that Dean would run off. The truth was that he wanted to, wanted to shut all of this out, shut his damn mouth. But he was out for the count, just... _out_. Nothing left fighting, nothing left resisting, and if he didn't open his mouth, he had the weird feeling that he was just gonna _run out_. He had nothing in him, nothing but the words and the despair and the inky-black thoughts. These led nowhere, just to death. But words, out there... damned words, words out there was like he was still just a little bit alive, with something hanging in the air.

"The way I've been acting," he said, slowly, cautiously too, "And for dad. I mean... he was your dad too, and it's my fault he's gone."

"What are you talking about?" Sam breathed, and Dean wanted to deck him.

_You're gonna make me fucking say this_...

"I know you've been thinking about it," Dean said, voice calmer than his wildly beating heart, tired but helplessly chugging, "So have I. Doesn't take a genius to figure it out. Back at the hospital, I had a full recovery, and it was a miracle. Then five minutes later, dad's dead, and the Colt's gone."

"Dean..." Sam hesitated.

"You can't tell me there's not a connection there," Dean went on, refusing to be stopped now, "I don't know how the demon was involved. I don't know how the whole thing went down, exactly. But Dad's dead because of me. That much I do know."

The obligatory: "We don't know that, not for sure."

_Don't insult me_...

"Sam," Dean implored him, "You and dad... you're the most important people in my life. And now... I never should have come back, Sam. It wasn't natural, and now look what's come of it. I was dead."

_I still am._

_I'm supposed to have been dead a long time ago_.

_If I had died then, none of this would be happening._

_I should have died._

_I wish I was dead_.

" " "

"I should have stayed dead," Dean told his brother, voice breaking. Sam sat beside him, breathless and disbelieving, and damned afraid.

"You wanted to know how I was feeling," Dean declared, "Well that's it."

Dean's crying, and now Sam wants to too. That was how it went, right? If your protector thinks you're fucked, if the one guy who can save you from the world thinks you're fucked, well you're _royally_ fucked. It was like kids watching their parents cry, uncomprehending, but afraid, just because.

Dean faces his brother, and Sam could have sworn it was one of the damned boldest things Dean had ever done in his life, showing Sam his tears, apologizing to Sam for having been the cause of their father's death.

"So tell me," Dean asked, "What could you possibly say to make that all right?"

Sam racked his brain, desperately.

Dean meant it as rhetorical, yeah, sure, but his Stanford brain should come up with something, _anything_, because it was a damned important question, right? Because basically, Dean was apologizing for being the consolation prize out of the Dad-or-Dean trade. Dean was saying he wasn't worth the lives of the people who had died for him to live.

Dean deserved to think otherwise. But Sam, still plagued by guilt, couldn't find it in his heart to say out loud, _I'm sorry dad's gone, but I'm happy you're here, if it came down between you or him_. It was god's plain truth. If the world was fair, none of them would have had to choose, and Sam was damned glad he didn't have to. But he was happy that Dean was beside him, and he could feel no shame in that. Still, there were no words for it. The indirect devaluation of their father would only hurt the both of them more, at this point.

"It's not your fault," Sam said, quietly, falling on technicalities, "Dad didn't give you any choice."

Dean gave him an unconvinced snort.

_Yeah, because that makes everything all right_.

Sam felt bolder, feeling Dean's despairing disappointment.

"Back at the hospital," Sam said, "I didn't think you could hear me, but I begged you to hold on."

"You would," Dean grumbled.

"You're right," Sam continued, "Because it wasn't the first time. I begged you to hold on, and you did. Back when you were sick, a few years ago... I asked you to wake up, and you did. A few months ago, just before Nebraska, your heart stopped, and I called you, and you came back. I asked you to give everything I could find a fair shot, and you did that too."

"Sam, what are you--"

"It's not supposed to make things any easier," Sam said quickly, "And it can't make things better. But what I'm saying is that... is that... if this thing with dad is what we think it is... if you're alive because he's dead... he didn't do it just to save you.

"He also did it to save me."

Dean stared at him, still looking haunted.

THE END

September 21, 2008

" " "

" " "

**AFTERWORD**

" " "

**I. The Ending**

Oh you would not believe how hard I found it to end this. There was just no way to end it, haha. I felt like I had to make it 'feel' like _One Night_, so I ended it with a scene from the series. In _One Night_, I used a scene from the _Pilot_ to make my fic fit in with the series. I felt I had to do the same with _Once More_. The question was, since I've already liberally used scenes from the series throughout the fic, which one to use for the epilogue?

The ending scene of _Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things_ came to mind because I noticed that _One Night, Once More_ and the series itself had Dean and Sam alternately looking out for each other. The beginning of Season Two had a very palpable sense of despair because it just felt like no one was in control of the situation: they lost their father, they failed their mission, Sam was coming into a very dark path, Dean might have to kill his own brother... the hopeless, drowning feeling just contrasted with the taking-turns-looking-out-for-each-other thing from the rest of the series. The question here became who will guard the guardians?

Besides, _One Night _ended with the brothers looking for their father. It felt interesting to me to end _Once More _with them having just lost him, in a kind of parallelism.

I also like the way _Once More _ended ominously, haha, since, as we all know, Sam saying 'He saved you to save me' may or may not be wrong given that John had told Dean he may have to kill his own brother.

**II. A Trilogy?**

I'm playing with this thought. Readers of my works from other fandoms know that so far, a hundred percent of my sequel-ed fics have turned into trilogies, just because I felt three is a more round number. One of my unfinished stories, _One Week_, is pegged to become part three of the _One_ series. The thought struck me that the theme was the same: _One Night_ and _Once More _both dealt with the time between Dean and Sam when they thought he was dying (in _One Night_ from a lung disease, in _Once More _from heart failure), so it fits in that mold perfectly, because _One Week _is the last week before Dean's crossroads deal comes through.

Besides, haha, I was looking at my list of works and it just annoyed me that there was a _One Night_ and a _Once More _and a completely unrelated _One Week_, haha, so it will likely become the third and last part of the series. I also made an opening that I'm not sure everyone may have picked up: The goodbye letter Dean had written for his dad is still not found, haha!

Anyway, I really hope _Once More _felt like an honest-to-goodness sequel to _One Night_. I'd hate to have made it 'feel' different, so I added some touches, to make them feel connected. Again, I'm not sure if everyone caught it, but there were lines that were repeated, especially references to dancing and tango, scenes of standing in doorways, references to the missing letter, Sam's phone call to their father... there are a lot of parallelisms and these are just the things that immediately come to mind.

**III. Tying In With The Series**

Aside from wanting desperately for _Once More _to fit in with _One Night_, it was vital that it fit in well with the series, since I plugged it some scene-fillers here. I know everyone's seen the series and so the narrative-version of them might have made many of you impatient, but I watched the scenes over and I am telling you, writing a narrated version of these actor's performances just gave me a renewed appreciation for their work. It is so damn nuanced, I couldn't believe it until I was writing it down.

One of my favorite scenes in _Once More_ is that scene between Sam and Dean at the hospital with the daytime TV thing? The way they avoided each other's eyes, or when I wrote that they glanced at each other as if testing the waters was not originally me at all, watch it again, I just felt that I was just jotting down something that the actors were actually, _actually_ doing. The boys are good-looking, haha, so it's easy to overlook the skill, but that scene was just orchestrated down to the damn hair, haha.

I also tried to use what is emerging as canon language, to make _Once More_ fit in with the series. I'm sure I've used the patented "What?" of the brothers, which they usually use when the word comes out before the understanding belatedly follows, haha. I've also used the pain-in-the-ass-brother thing, which makes appearances in _Scarecrow_, _Bloodlust_ and unforgettably in _All Hell Breaks Loose Part 1_. There must be a couple other things though :)

**IV. The Characters**

**A. The Brothers**

The references I made to their relationship here are quite many, but the notable one, to me, is in Chapter 1 when they are still a little bit awkward and Dean thinks: 'Their time together _before_ Stanford had been deep and ingrained, like blood in their veins. That blood was running on thinners right now, sure, but it was still there and all damn over.' This is also like the part in the same chapter where Sam felt he had to touch his brother, he just didn't know where. It's pretty metaphoric of their certainty of their need to be together but not quite sure how to execute it, haha. The ending of _One Night_ was still awkward for the brothers, bridging into the beginning of _Once More_.

I also kept referring to their relationship as a kind-of dance, which is pulled from _One Night_. If you remember, in _One Night_, Dean comes to the realization that he doesn't have to fix them because they're not broken and they never will be; what they need is time to figure that out. How they danced around each other and then just _fell in_ to the routines of looking after each other is still well-used in _Once More_.

**B. Sam**

Everyone whose ever read anything I ever wrote for this fandom already knows I love Dean but I love writing Sam more. _Once More _is no exception. My favorite nuances are:

(1) This fic has postulated that his belief is in Dean and no longer in their father; that his belief that their father can make things better is only because Dean thinks so.

(2) The 'enviable control' thing from my favorite scene in this entire fic, the Darkness-conversation in Chapter 2, when Dean confesses to Sam that he only ahs a week left to live? I loved writing that, how Sam can easily shift from despair to action. I was inspired to write that from watching Jared Padalecki in the episode _Salvation_, and he loses it a little until he remembers their father, sniffs and clears his throat and then just goes back to business, almost cold turkey.

(3) I also liked the idea that Dean lets him drive whenever he's upset, especially with respect to John, haha. He let Sam drive after the phone call in _Scarecrow_ when he was so pissed; and Dean let Sam drive in _Dead Man's Blood_ when he was also pissed at their dad, so I figured, hey, there's a pattern here. It felt like Dean trying to distract a kid, haha.

(4) Sam as really bull-headed and stubborn!

(5) My favorite thing about Sam in _Once More_ is how he appropriated control from his older brother, and then gives it back when things are back to normal. I loved writing the scene in Chapter 3 when he tells Dean 'We're going to the doctor' in a smaller voice, knowing that it would be one of his last commands since the older brother was back.

**C. Dean**

Okay, Dean as he is depicted in my stories is usually the safe-version. In _Once More_, I tackled the standard issue that he hates being left behind, and his fear of being vulnerable. I think I used a few lesser-aspects of the standard characterization though:

(1) For instance, I actually let him cry for himself here, but of course with a Dean-spin. It's not 'cos he thinks he's broken, he's just pissed about being cheated.

(2) Like I said, my favorite scene in this story is when he confesses to Sam in the dark. Dean being open about his problems is by canon usually a rare thing, so to keep him in character, I kept him in the dark, haha, still hiding in some sense.

(3) When he calls Sam selfish in _Scarecrow_, I thought it might be what Ellicott would have dug up if the roles have been reversed in _Asylum_. The observations of the shapeshifter in _Skin_ is a bit akin to that anyway. I really feel that Dean might have meant it, but also that he didn't mind. When he calls up Sam in the _Scarecrow_ part of _Once More_, he thinks that some selfish guys deserve to get the things that they want and Sam was simply one of them. The unanswerable thing for me though, haha, was when he said 'Hell I wish--' in that same phone call. What would he have said?

(4) _Once More _also made reference to Dean and how Sam thinks he constantly refuses help. I actually disagree, which is written in the fic too. I think that when Dean's needy, Sam gets it somehow (even if he never asks for it) and works it through, in their own crazy way. Dean just wasn't asking for Sam's help in the episodes after their father died was because he didn't think Sam could do anything about it.

(5) Lastly, _Once More_ depicts Dean as very self-aware and proud of his big brother role. I think, save for _All Hell Breaks Loose Part 2_ when he justifiably has a profound feeling of failure, Dean knows that he does a great job looking after Sam and that his big-brother-as-savior-mode is a huge part of who he is.

**V. Massive Thanks and Replies**

Massive thanks go out to all who read and put me and _Once More_ on alerts, C2s and favorites lists. Sasquatch-level thanks go to those who reviewed. I don't get a lot, and I'm starting to be resigned that I won't be, haha, but you keep me going, and I hope you know that.

Particularly, shout out to: tacpebs, Master Li, iluvsprntrl,youcanmakethisup, apieceofcake, happycabbage75, VR Jennings, AllieMcD, adder574, zuimar, riguitv, allison lightning, Thru Terry's Eyes, Ster1, Emrys 1, and ellen42.

Thanks also:

To Kristy and Maz101, who have commented on the faitfulness to the spirit of the episodes and the added depth, thank you for noting it, as I really, really tried my best, as you may be able to tell from the Afterword above.

To lizard971, who commented on the dynamics of how I write Sam and Dean, lots of thanks on noting that; they are so damned hard to write, haha, so all I can do is just do my best and hope it comes across all right.

To Kelcor, I will always look forward to and appreciate your enthusiastic exclamation points.

To Mandy, I love your enthusiasm and can attest that you are easily one of my most empowering fuels.

To Phoebe, you are ever supportive and as perceptive as always, haha, and I have a weird feeling that we think alike; the parts you notice are usually my favorite ones.

If I got cross-eyed and missed anyone, please, PLEASE call me out on it, and I will thank you properly as you deserve :)

**VI. Next Project/s**

As was mentioned above, the already-posted _One Week _will likely be a part of the _One_ Trilogy. Here's a little clip from Chapter 1, but if you want the entire chapter, it's already posted in .

Author:Mirrordance

Title:**One Week**

Summary:"I'm sorry but you have to let me do this, Sam," Dean said.He found a desperate solution to his problem:Colt back in his hands,he wondered if it would be better to just shoot himself and be dead to life and what came after it, than to end up in hell.

" " "

Preview

" " "

_New York, New York_

_7 Days Left_

" " "

He sat on Dean's bed, head in his hands as he waited for his brother to come out of the bathroom.

The retching had stopped. He knew that by the open lights, Dean would have already guessed that he was awake too. He heard the tap run. That was Dean washing his face and his mouth. But more than anything, he guessed that was Dean buying time to think about what to say to him.

"You all right?" Sam asked with a wince, when Dean finally emerged from the bathroom.

"I think I overate."

_Bit off more than you can chew, more like_, Sam thought. He debated, for a long moment, whether or not he should just let Dean get away with that.

_No time_, he decided.

"I know you heard them," Sam said, softly, "The dogs."

Dean took a moment too, apparently also weighing in on whether or not he should just lie. He came to the same decision Sam had. He sank to sit next to Sam.

"Yeah..." he admitted, "But they're just trying to be assholes. We all know they ain't coming down 'til d-day. They're just trying to psych me out. They got me tonight, but I know better now."

"Water," Sam said, his own mouth dry, his mind wrangled-empty of things to say. He motioned numbly for the glass he had prepared for his brother.

"You look like you need it more than me," Dean teased, gently, though he took the glass, took a sip he did not need to appease his brother, having already had his fill in the bathroom.

"You should go back to sleep," Sam said, looking at Dean earnestly, "I got your back."

Dean opened his mouth, as if to say something. But he clamped it shut, after a long look at his brother's steely-determined face. Sam knew what he would have said. Dean would have said it was useless, Dean would have said there was nothing Sam could do to stop the hounds from coming. That Sam having Dean's back tonight meant absolutely nothing to a hungry hellhound. Dean would have been right. But he let his younger brother hold the carefully-constructed, by-now-fairly-ridiculous delusion.

"Thanks, bro," Dean said, his eyes clouded, as he reached over and closed the night lamp. He settled down to bed, on his belly, and face turned decidedly away from Sam. Sam stayed where he was, on Dean's bed by his arm, until he heard the ease return to his brother's sleepy breathing.

And then Sam sank cross-legged to the floor, back against his brother's bed, as if he was something disgusting and viscous pouring down to the ground.

And then he cried.

Soundless, anguished, carefully controlled crying, the way he's lately learned how. There were no hitched breaths, no embarrassing sniffing, no trembling shoulders. It was just a crippling, hopeless, flooded, pouring gaze contradicted by inhumanly even breaths. No one could have known, he'd have sworn, he was so damned sure, _No one_.

Dean's warm hand wordlessly and gracelessly dropped down on top of his head. Ruffled his hair for a second or two, and then stilled and stayed there.

No one could have known, apparently, except the one who knew him best, the one whom the show was for, rendering the entire exercise absolutely useless after all.

He clenched his eyes closed tight, and let his tears fall more violently. Allowed himself to breathe harshly. Dean's hand never wavered, just stayed where it was. All damn night, it was warm, and comforting, and just _there_. He fell asleep where he was.

" " "

The second fic I'm writing will be a suspense/adventure one. I already have a feeling it's gonna be long, winding and crazy, haha, but I'm gonna try because I personally find the urban legend its based on very intriguing. I've already written the prologue and part of Chapter 1. Preview will be posted soon enough but anyway, basic synopsis:

Author:Mirrordance

Title:**Underworld**

Summary:Sam and Dean clash with a Cold Case Detective over what to do about the vindictive ghost of a streetwalker, the disturbing clues left by the murdered man who witnessed her death, and the serial killer responsible still out on the loose in the streets of New York City.

Thanks for reading and 'til the next post!


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